


What About Us?

by grahamhannah53



Category: Naruto
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Humor, BAMF Haruno Sakura, Blow Jobs, Canon Compliant, Crime Family AU, Cyberpunk, F/M, Fluff, Getting Back Together, M/M, Multi, Organized Crime, Polyamory, Semi-Public Sex, Smut, Timeline What Timeline, Vaginal Sex, kakashi adopted the kids and mostly didnt regret it, kinda? like all the jutsu are technology
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-02-22 15:40:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 47,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22351861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grahamhannah53/pseuds/grahamhannah53
Summary: The only time families ever really get together is for weddings and funerals. This generalization is also true of crime syndicates.When there is a death in the Family, Naruto returns home after three years of traveling, training, and having more technology implanted than any human ever really should, and Konoha City is turned on its head as Naruto finds alarming information about his heritage, Sakura goes undercover inside another Family, and both of them come to terms with the fact that they will do anything to reclaim their ex-lover from the clutches of Orochimaru, the Head of a Family in a neighboring City.This is a tale of revenge, redemption, and rediscovery, and how Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke learn to fall together instead of apart.~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~(In this AU, the world is run mostly by major crime syndicates in each city, the government being only a figurehead to cover what's really being done. Because of the lack of government regulation and intervention, technology has advanced exponentially, creating tech like the bionic Sharingan eye.)
Relationships: Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke, Haruno Sakura/Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura/Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke/Uzumaki Naruto
Comments: 89
Kudos: 164





	1. A Death in the Family

It had been three years since Sakura had seen Naruto. 

In that time, he'd gotten taller, broader, and even more handsome, with a glowing tan and lean muscles. He looked like a real man now, his appearance finally matching the numbers to his age, and Sakura had never been happier to see him than when he scooped her into a big bear hug at the airport as they reunited after so long.

"Sakura-chan!" he greeted her during their bone-crushing hug. "I missed you so much!"

"I missed you too, Naruto," she replied, giggling as he pressed a whiskered kiss to her cheek. Then, chidingly, she added, "Although I  _ am _ a little miffed that it took Kaka-sensei calling you for you to come and visit."

Sheepishly, Naruto blushed and scratched the back of his head. "Well, you know how things go. I've been busy."

Of course, that was a rough translation of the truth, but not completely accurate. To put it simply, when Kakashi called any one of them, it was an emergency, and if it  _ hadn't _ been an emergency, then Naruto wouldn't have come. It was hard for him, coming back to Konoha— every street corner held a memory, and every gentle breeze seemed to carry a sad song for him— a sentiment Sakura could understand. 

After all, there are some wounds that even time won't heal, and out of the three of them that Kakashi took in, Naruto had the worst of it when it came to wounds, both physically and emotionally. 

"Yeah, yeah," she told him, punching his arm playfully (but he still flinched.) "I've heard it all before. Let's get going so Kakashi doesn't have a duck fit because we're late, yeah?"

"Eh, I'd rather not," Naruto laughed, but grabbed the handle of his luggage and pulled it towards Sakura's car anyways. "I think we should ditch him and go get Ichiraku's. He'd do the same to us, you know he would."

It was tempting. If Sakura was honest, she wanted to keep Naruto to herself for a little while yet and take time to catch up before they were pulled in opposite directions, but whatever Kakashi and Tsunade (Sakura's mentor and head of the Family) wanted to tell them couldn't wait, or so Tsunade had insisted. Whatever the situation was, a lack of timeliness on their part would likely only exacerbate it, and Tsunade was too scary of a bear to poke.

"I wish," she sighed, popping the trunk of her Rav-4 for Naruto to load his suitcase. "But Tsunade is there with him at the old place, so we should probably get going."

"Baa-chan? Oh boy, we must be in some real trouble," Naruto joked, but the look they shared betrayed his sincerity. 

"Yeah, no kidding," Sakura replied grimly, blowing her bangs out of her face.

In truth, Sakura wasn't exactly looking forward to finding out just what sort of trouble they were into. Her shishou had been so upset the night before that she had demanded a meeting with Kakashi and his "brood," as soon as possible, and such a call from the boss was never social and rarely pleasant. Not to mention that if something had Tsunade shaken up, well… 

It had to be a hell of a thing. 

Sakura's reluctance must have showed on her face because Naruto grinned and changed the subject as they pulled away from the airport and onto the road. 

"Anyways, is that new tech I see, or did you just put something there to take away from your billboard brow?" the blond teased, pointing to the purple diamond that graced Sakura's forehead. 

It was, in fact, new tech, and the forehead was still a touchy subject, as Naruto found out when Sakura smacked him. 

"It's a Byakugou, like Tsunade's, baka," Sakura explained with a roll of her eyes, tapping it gently. "She implanted it herself.

In addition to the basic muscle-enhancing tech Tsunade had implanted for Sakura a couple years ago, she had recently gifted Sakura with said Byakugou, which was largely experimental. Apparently, it was incredibly rare to find someone as compatible with the tech as Sakura— in fact, Tsunade herself was the only other person in Konoha able to use it— so Tsunade had jumped at the chance to study it in action on another person. "Besides," Tsunade had told her with a wink, "I'm not going to live forever—  _ someone  _ is gonna have to take over this shit show after me."

Of course, since Naruto had been gone for so long, he would know nothing about it, but he nodded anyways and pretended not to be confused until his curiosity got the better of him. 

"So, what does it do?" he finally asked, turning in his seat to study Sakura's face more closely. 

"It allows me to store my unused strength day after day and release it in times that I might need it," she told him with more than a little pride, but Naruto only frowned as if even more confused.

"But, Sakura, you're already stronger than I am normally in terms of physical strength because of your implants," he replied, scratching the back of his head. "What on earth could you need more power than that for?"

"Oh, punching someone so hard that every bone in their body shatters from the force," she grinned, sneaking a glance at Naruto's reaction as she drove. "And, since we've modified it a little, my strength is transferable, both to patients and to ah, friends in need."

Sakura's day (and sometimes night and weekend) job was at Konoha's biggest research hospital where she treated patients with particularly sticky diseases and conditions under Tsunade. Her the-rest-of-the-time job (because who needs sleep these days?) was working for Tsunade in…  _ other  _ capacities, the way Naruto did before he left. Given that, having extra strength to loan was beneficial in a wide range of scenarios, such as lending life to a dying patient and/or surging power through a partner who would be helping her relieve someone of an appendage or two. 

"Ohh," Naruto grinned, finally understanding. "That's badass! Can I have one?"

Sakura rolled her eyes, albeit with a certain fondness. Evidently, some things never changed— not even after three years of experience and thousands of miles of distance. 

"Naruto, the likelihood that you're compatible with it is almost nonexistent since you didn't have enough control for the muscle implants, and besides, your kyuubi does kind of the same thing."

Naruto huffed, crossing his arms in mock offence as his mischievous grin gave away his teasing. "You just don't want me to have the same Byaku-whatever 'cause you think I might be better at using it than you."

"Naruto." Sakura's exasperation, as usual, was tinged with fondness, but it was no less exasperation for that fact.

"That's it, isn't it?" he teased, poking at Sakura's forehead (like an idiot— she was trying to drive!) "I'll just ask Tsunade about it myself when we get home and see what  _ she  _ has to say about it."

They went on like that, talking about the new tricks up their sleeves just like old times, but the moment their first real childhood home came into view— standing as tall and serene as ever— both Naruto and Sakura fell into uncharacteristic silence. Well, it was more like Naruto fell silent, likely struggling under the weight of his reminiscing, and Sakra was swept along for the ride, as she often was when it came to his feelings. She hazarded a glance at Naruto's expression as she put the car in park, and anguish was written across his face as clear as day. 

Tentatively, she reached out her hand to cover his, and he gripped her pale fingers like they were a lifeline in the swirling depths of his memories as he drew in a shaky breath.

"You don't have to do this if you aren't ready," she told him gently, reaching across the car to cup a whiskered cheek. "I can turn right back around and set you up in a hotel if you want."

As strong (and knuckleheaded) as ever, Naruto shook his head, pressing a gentle kiss to Sakura's temple. 

"Thank you, Sakura-chan," he told her with heartbreaking sincerity in his sapphire eyes. "But I need to do this. If I don't do this now, I know I never will."

Sakura nodded, understanding. She squeezed his hand once, then let go, unbuckling her seatbelt and stepping out of the car as Naruto did the same. They walked to the door, hand in hand, likely thinking of the same thing… or, rather, the same person. 

Uchiha Sasuke— traitor to the Family, and their once-lover. 

This house— the Hatake family estate, a mansion about fifteen minutes from Konoha City— was where the three of them grew up together once Kakashi had adopted them. It was truly home, their  _ first  _ home… but after Sasuke's betrayal, it was hard to think about home, about  _ family _ , without also thinking of their heartbreak. 

"Ready?" she asked, squeezing Naruto's hand in encouragement as they stared at the ominous, once-white paint of Kakashi's front door.

"Not really," he chuckled nervously, but opened the door anyways, knowing that Kakashi never kept the damn thing locked. 

The sight that greeted them was disturbing to say the least. 

At first, it was hard to see anything because all the lights in the house were off, and the curtains were drawn, letting in only slivers of sunlight. The TV was on, but the volume was muted and it provided little in the way of light. Once their eyes had adjusted, though, they saw enough to confirm Sakura's suspicion that things were Bad. 

Tsunade, the strongest woman— the strongest  _ person _ — Sakura knew, looked like hell. She was the most powerful person in Konoha City, and yet there she sat, spread out on Kakashi's old, ratty couch, drunk as hell, looking like she'd been ridden hard and put up wet. Kakashi, seated in his recliner, was masked as always, but the air was fraught with tension from the unique sort of anxious energy he tended to exude when under duress. 

_ This is not good,  _ Sakura thought, frantically running calculations in her head for the best way to run damage control for three people at once.  _ This is really, really not good.  _

"Hey," Naruto greeted them, a slight tremor in his voice betraying the warm smile on his face. "Looks like everyone's glad to see me, what with all the bright, smiling faces."

Tsunade and Kakashi shared a look, and even Sakura felt like fidgeting. 

"Naruto," Kakashi spoke gently, as though to a frightened animal. "I want you to sit down for this."

Knuckleheaded as usual, Naruto didn't take the hint. "For what?" he asked, dropping Sakura's hand to fold his arms. "The longer you guys piss around and not tell me, the worse I'm starting to feel."

Kakashi sighed. "Naruto, please— "

The blond snapped like a twig under the emotional pressure. "Just fucking tell me already! I don't have time for games, don't you get it?"

Sakura, understanding the situation, tugged at Naruto's sleeve, pulling him towards the loveseat. "Look, Naruto— "

"Enough!"

Tsunade rose to her full height as she barked the command, and even as she wobbled a little before regaining her balance, she shocked Naruto enough for him to stumble involuntarily towards the loveseat. Seeing an opportunity, Sakura sat on the loveseat and yanked Naruto down next to her, keeping one hand curled around his bicep. 

"Baa-chan," Naruto addressed Tsunade, glancing from her feet to her face. "What happened?"

Just like that, Tsunade's facade, thin though it might have been, shattered, her eyebrows scrunching together and her mouth contorting into a deep, troubled frown as she started to cry. 

"He's dead," she croaked, her voice raw and broken. 

"Who's dead, Tsunade? Who?" Naruto demanded, and Sakura threw her arm in front of him on instinct. She could feel the kyuubi in him stirring, and she hoped that he had not come to the same conclusion that Sakura herself had. 

Tsunade choked on her tears, stumbling backwards, and with the speed and efficiency of a soldier (albeit that he had long since been retired from the military), Kakashi caught her and helped her back to the couch. 

"It's Jiraiya," Kakashi intoned softly, looking away from them so that all they could see was the cloth of his covered face and Sharingan. "He's gone, Naruto. It was an Akatsuki."

That's when it all fell apart, and Sakura wasn't sure there was anything she could do about it. 

There was yelling, accusations—"You sent him  _ alone,  _ baa-chan, you knew it was too dangerous!","Well maybe you shouldn't have run from Konoha like a sprayed roach just because your boyfriend dumped you, then you could have gone with him!" and so on and so forth— and then came the violence. 

"Fuck you, I'm trying to make the best decisions that I can!" Tsunade raged, throwing her coffee mug full of liquor at Naruto before wiping her nose on her sleeve. "You have no  _ idea  _ what kind of pressure I'm under every single day, and all for a job  _ I didn't even want _ ! I wanted to be a doctor, I wanted to  _ heal  _ people, not hurt them!"

In retaliation, Naruto yanked the lamp on the table next to him out of the wall and hurled it at Tsunade, who shattered it with one fist. "Then you shouldn't have taken it and let someone else have it instead!" 

"There  _ was  _ no one else!"  _ Crash. _

"Then suck it up!"  _ Slam. _ "That or just give up the job, you stupid old hag!"

Sakura was miserable, feeling helpless as usual whenever things got so out of hand. Kakashi, however, seemed to be just fine as he sat back and watched Naruto and Tsunade go at it, destroying his house and scaring the dogs, who, while robotic, still had little doggy hearts that loved the people who were rather upset and throwing shit at each other. Sakura felt much the same as little Pakkun, the bronze pug, who whimpered and pawed at Kakashi as if to say "Do something, boss, this is getting out of hand." For a moment, she almost thought Kakashi would give in to the pug's pleading, but eventually he just scooped Pakkun into his arms and held him, taking the good ol' Hatake approach to things— doing  _ nothing. _

With a long sigh, Sakura resigned herself to the role of mediator. She really hadn't wanted to get in the middle of things, but it would be absolutely unreasonable and definitely unrealistic to suppose that Kakashi would deal with the shit that was going on in his own house. 

"That's  _ it _ ," Sakura snapped, snatching the vase that she'd made her freshman year in art class away from the imminent destruction it would have faced in Naruto's hands. "You two are grown-ass adults, get the fuck over yourselves and just cry like normal people."

"No," they both growled in unison, and Kakashi chose that moment to intervene. 

"Well, if you aren't going to do that, can you at least sweep up your mess while you yell at each other?" Kakashi suggested, setting Pakkun back down. "People always come over to visit when there's a death in the family, so it's a good idea to keep the place tidy, you know."

"I don't want to be in the same room as that ungrateful brat until he learns some respect," Tsunade snarled, still a little wobbly. 

"That's fine by me," Naruto grumbled, snatching Sakura's vase back and setting it in its proper place. "Come on, Sakura-chan, let's go."

Obediently, Sakura let herself be dragged by her hand out the door and into the street, and Naruto just kept walking, his head down and his pace furious. She knew he was crying, and she wasn't sure if he knew where he was going, but in the end, she supposed it didn't really matter. After all, Sakura would follow him anywhere he led, come hell or high water. 

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Naruto hadn't realized exactly where he was going until he got there. His mind had been wandering and his vision was blurred, so his feet had taken charge and brought them back to the place where it all began— the Konoha City Youth Center, where Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke first met. 

Standing there, gazing at the green grass of the soccer field and the skid-marked pavement that had become a basketball court, Naruto felt daunted. Instead of the strong, capable man he'd become, Naruto felt more like the scraggly little boy from the worst orphanage within three hundred miles— the one who did stupid shit for attention. For a moment, he was nearly overwhelmed, and judging by the tremble in Sakura's hands, he wasn't the only one who was struggling. 

"Oi! Naruto-kun! Sakura-chan!"

Startled out of his reverie, Naruto looked up to see none other than Umino Iruka walking towards them, waving in greeting. 

"Iruka-sensei!" Naruto grinned, jogging to meet the Center counselor half way. "How have you been?"

"Lonely without my Ichiraku buddy every Tuesday night," the sensei laughed, pulling Naruto into a hug. 

As they released each other, Naruto genuinely smiled. "You should call me more often," he said, having forgotten just how much he missed his sensei until they'd reunited. 

"Phones work both ways," Iruka quipped before hugging Sakura as well. "It's good to see you— both of you."

"It's good to be here." Naruto tried to make it sound convincing, but Iruka knew him too well for that. 

"Naruto, you don't have to pretend to be okay," Iruka told him, placing a dark-skinned hand on Naruto's shoulder. "I heard what happened, and I'm so sorry. I… well, I couldn't believe it when I heard."

"Me either," Naruto replied, feeling tears well up in his eyes once more, and he let them flow freely, unable to hold them back any longer.

"There it is," Iruka chuckled softly, pulling Naruto back into a hug. "Let it out."

For the longest time, Naruto had thought Jiraiya invincible. He was strong, stronger than any one person had a right to be, and had taught Naruto so very much about life and love and fulfillment… it seemed that Naruto had only just  _ found  _ his absentee godfather, and now to lose him, especially like this… well, it seemed impossible. The unfairness of it all frustrated Naruto more than anything he had ever experienced, but he cried it out onto Iruka's vest, releasing it all so that it could no longer hurt him quite as much. 

"I know, Naruto, I know," Iruka murmured, holding him so tightly that one would think he was trying to hold him together physically as well as emotionally. "When Hiruzen died, I was exactly the way you are now."

_ Oh, that's right,  _ Naruto thought, remembering that Iruka had been adopted by Sarutobi Hiruzen, the boss before Tsunade. Of course, the sensei had little to do with the Family business, by both Hiruzen's choice and his own, but the man had been Iruka's father in all but blood.

… and when Hiruzen died, and the  _ way _ that he died… 

Well, Iruka could probably understand Naruto's pain completely— and in hindsight, it seemed as though the sensei had  _ always _ been able to understand— which was probably why he was Naruto's favorite person in the whole world. 

It took a few minutes for Naruto to finally stop crying, but Iruka never stopped holding him until the last tear had fallen. Eternally grateful, Naruto pulled away feeling at least three times better than he had before. 

"Thank you," he croaked, and Iruka's warm, reflective brown eyes threatened to drown him in love and kindness.

"Of course," Iruka replied, as though it were the easiest thing in the world. 

Naruto couldn't help but remember how often Iruka had done this for him. As a child, Naruto had often been alone and so very lonely, but somehow, Iruka was always there. He was the first person who encouraged Naruto to learn how to be proud of himself without being jealous of others, to make friends instead of rivals, and most of all, Iruka showed Naruto how to love people wholly, unconditionally, and without regard to what they seemed to be at first. And, after all, it had also been Iruka that introduced him to Sasuke and Sakura, the loves of his life— and to Kakashi, who had been convinced by his army buddy and lifelong best friend Maito Gai to coach the soccer team at the Center— and, well, that had kinda changed Naruto's life forever. 

"Thank you" didn't even begin to cover what Naruto wanted to say, but he wasn't sure that there enough words in any language to describe his gratitude. 

"Why don't you and Sakura join me for some Ichiraku's, then I'll walk you guys home?" Iruka suggested, throwing an arm around Naruto's shoulder. "After all, I have some… well, some news for you anyways."

Sakura grinned up from where she had been sitting during Naruto's breakdown, and Naruto was very, very afraid of what that look meant. 

"You mean no one told him?" she giggled, and Naruto offered her a hand to help her up. 

"Told me what?" he demanded, a little put out about being the last one to know everything. 

Iruka blushed darkly. "Uh, well— "

"Oh you could guess," Sakura snorted, tossing her hair. "Ino still owes me twenty bucks."

Naruto's jaw almost hit the ground. He remembered that bet all too well.

"You're shitting me!" He exclaimed, looking from Sakura to Iruka in an endless loop. "You… with Kakashi? Iruka-sensei, he's such a pervert!"

Iruka chuckled, fidgeting nervously. "Well, ah, you see, what had happened was— "

"They had an argument," Sakura interjected, grinning wickedly. "And you  _ know  _ Kakashi's had the hots for him for  _ years. _ "

"I wouldn't say years," Iruka chuckled nervously, but Naruto knew better than that. 

"Oh come  _ on _ , Kakashi has looked at you like a one-eyed alley cat looks at a fish market since we were twelve," Naruto groaned, remembering how awful and awkward Kakashi always was around Iruka. "I just thought you had better tastes than that." 

" _Anyways,_ " Sakura continued, ignoring Iruka's protesting. "They had an argument, and because Kakashi thinks fighting is also foreplay, he popped a boner that everyone could _clearly_ see through his basketball shorts— "

Scandalized, Iruka gasped. "— Sakura that is  _ entirely _ inappropriate— "

"And then they made out on the soccer field and the rest is history."

Naruto was  _ mortified _ .

So mortified, in fact, that he complained all the way to Ichiraku Ramen about it. After that, Naruto did eventually subside to gently ribbing Iruka about it, and then to dropping the subject entirely on the way home, but it was still gross. Kakashi was just  _ such  _ a pervert and Iruka was just  _ not  _ and… ew.

And if Naruto thought it was gross before, it was even  _ worse  _ when they actually got home late that evening (after shopping and visiting old friends for a couple hours) when Kakashi pulled down his mask to greet Iruka with a kiss… or five. Sakura didn't even bat an eye as though it were completely normal, and sat down on the couch to flip through channels on the TV that Kakashi would evidently not be watching for a while. Unfortunately, Naruto didn't have such a strong stomach, and nearly lost his lunch. 

"Kaka-senseiiiiii, you're disgusting!"

"Tsunade's on the second floor, third door down" Kakashi said between kisses, completely ignoring Naruto's retching noises. "You should go talk to her."

"Yeah… right."

Just as Naruro had climbed halfway up the stairs, Kakashi called out to him. 

"Hey Naruto?"

"Yeah?" Naruto hollered back, refusing to look back and see whatever gross thing Kakashi was most likely doing. 

"Iruka and I are dating."

Behind him, Naruto heard a smack and Iruka scolding Kakashi lightly for being such an ass, and despite how gross it was, Naruto couldn't help but smile just a little. If Iruka was happy and Kakashi was happy, then Naruto would be happy for them, no matter the level of disgusting they were. 

Besides, he had bigger fish to fry, and an apology to make. 

At first, Naruto knocked, but when he heard no response, he opened the door to find Tsunade wiping her eyes, which were miserably bloodshot from crying. Immediately, regret washed over him— she was hurting just as badly, if not  _ worse  _ than Naruto himself. He really shouldn't have been so harsh earlier, but he had let his own hurt dictate his actions… like an idiot. 

"Sorry," they said at the same time, and then they shared a halfhearted chuckled before Tsunade patted the bed beside her, motioning for Naruto to sit down. 

"Listen, kid," Tsunade told him as she wrapped an arm around him, remarkably matronly for someone who would wake up with an ungodly hangover in the morning. "I love you. I shouldn't have brought up your boyfriend, especially not like that, and not in front of Sakura either. I know the three of you had something special, and that you're still hurting. I just said what I could to jab at you, and I'm sorry for it, I really am."

Naruto shrugged. Sasuke… that was a wound that was still healing, to be sure, but not one that he couldn't manage— and, to a degree, she had been right about Sasuke being the reason Naruto had left Konoha for a while. "It's okay, baa-chan, I know what you meant."

Tsunade smiled fondly and ruffled his hair, but soon she was frowning again as her mind remembered the weight of her troubles. 

"I think you should know something," Tsunade began, her voice quiet with fatigue. "Even though it hurts me to talk about and is probably going to hurt you too, I think it needs to be said."

"I don't think anything you say can hurt me more than I already am," Naruto smiled wryly, leaning into her side. "Tell me."

She sighed. "Naruto, Jiraiya and I were lovers, once upon a time."

"I could have guessed that," he laughed, fondly remembering how Jiraiya would always refer to Tsunade as the epitome of womanhood. "Is that all?"

"No." Tsunade's expression was strained, and Naruto's smile faded to a frown. "There was… another."

"Another?"

"Orochimaru."

Naruto sucked in a breath at that name. Orochimaru was the head of another Family a couple cities over, and, not-so-coincidentally, the slimy sonofabitch that Sasuke left Konoha for. Before Naruto could say anything, though, Tsunade continued, her eyes full of a sort of pain and regret that Naruto had become intimately acquainted with as of late. 

"He will likely come to the funeral, in part to pay his respects and in part to antagonize us. I believe Orochimaru was capable of humanity, once, but I think… I think that man is gone, and he left a cruel bastard in his place, so be prepared for anything," she told him, patting his shoulder. "That's actually why I need to go now, and make some calls regarding the funeral."

Naruto frowned. "You think there'll be trouble?"

She nodded her answer, and ruffled Naruto's hair one last time before standing to leave. Before she was completely gone, though, she paused at the door frame, looking back at Naruto with a weighted gaze. 

"After all," she added, speaking over her shoulder. "The only time a family ever really gets together is for weddings and funerals."

With that, Tsunade left, taking Naruto's peace of mind with her. Thankfully, it wasn't ten minutes after Tsunade abandoned him before Sakura, as though she were able to sense his distress, came upstairs and settled onto the bed next to him. She didn't say anything, only took off her headband and her pants and snuggled into his side. With a small, nostalgic smile, Naruto took off his shirt and pulled her closer. As soon as his head rested on top of hers, the bone-deep weariness that always came after a hard day overtook him, and he yawned. 

"Thank you, Sakura-chan," he told her, bleary-eyed but entirely grateful. 

Sakura's reply was quiet enough that Naruto had to strain to hear it. "I missed you."

It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was crying. As he often did, Naruto felt intense guilt for leaving Sakura to deal with the challenge of Konoha City alone, but as things were, he could do nothing but hold her and wish things were different. 

"I know, Sakura."

"And I love you," she sniffled, letting her tears flow freely. She looked up at him with those beautiful green eyes that could always make him choke on his words, and he kissed her forehead, right on the Byakugou. 

"I have always loved you," he told her, "And I always  _ will  _ love you."

Heart-breakingly lovely in her sadness, she managed a smile that stabbed Naruto in the chest. "I know. I think I'm tired, Naruto. Will you stay here tonight, or will you be finding somewhere… else?"

_ Somewhere that doesn't make me want to implode,  _ Naruto thought wryly, but when he looked at his sweet, darling Sakura-chan, he knew that she was exhausted, and he felt ill-inclined to move when she was making it obvious that she had no intention of moving either. 

"I'll stay the night wherever you're staying," he said, kissing her temple. "I don't think either of us need to be alone, and I'm pretty beat. Is here good?"

"Here is good," she nodded, reaching up to kiss him soundly on the mouth, and Naruro felt himself redden as she pulled away, took off her bra, and slipped under the covers. 

_ What a hell of a day,  _ he thought, turning off the light once he knew Sakura was sound asleep.  _ Maybe tomorrow will make more sense.  _


	2. Reverie, and Some New Developments

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remember the smut tag? let's get this bread

The morning after all hell broke loose, Sakura woke next to Naruto, curled into his warmth like a cat would curl up next to a fireplace. Certainly, Naruto was cozy enough— he was practically a space heater with all the thermal energy produced by his kyuubi tech. 

"Morning, Sakura-chan," he greeted her, voice husky with sleep. His eyes were half lidded, but his gaze was full of appreciation as he watched her yawn and crack her neck. That appreciation turned to something darker, richer as she sat up to stretch, revealing part of her midriff, and she smiled wickedly.

Sakura knew that look in Naruto's eye well, and she rather liked it, since it meant she was going to be thoroughly fucked.

"Morning," she replied, throwing a leg over his hip and kissing him for all she was worth.

Really and truly, they probably shouldn't be doing this. They hadn't been intimate at all since Sasuke… well, since he broke up with them and tried his damnedest to kill Naruto. It just hadn't felt right, with a third of them missing— Sakura felt that instead of Sasuke breaking up with Naruto and Sakura, Sasuke had made the decision to break  _ all  _ of them up. Which, that obviously wasn't the case, but she and Naruto hadn't discussed anything about it because it always hurt so badly to talk about the whole ordeal. 

Surely, though, they still loved each other… and it had been  _ so long _ since Sakura had something between her legs that wasn't run on batteries… 

It was a chance worth taking, especially when her risk was rewarded with Naruto's enthusiastic response. 

"Fuck, Sakura," he hissed as she cupped his erection. "You're seriously needy this morning."

"Three years is a long time," she replied, and pushed Naruto over onto his back so that she could straddle him. 

They stayed like that for a while, kissing, groping, grinding their bodies together until Naruto flipped their positions in one smooth motion, pinning Sakura beneath him and reminding her that though she was strong, she was still small in comparison to him.

"Are you just teasing me now, Sakura, or are we going to fuck?" he asked breathlessly, rubbing two fingers over the cloth covering her clit. 

"I shouldn't let you," Sakura half-moaned half-chuckled as Naruto slipped two fingers inside her. "You hardly ever called me while you were gone."

"Sakura-chaaaaaaaan." The want in Naruto's eyes was clear, and her name became something of a plea.

Knowing she had the upper hand, Sakura smirked. "It was quite hurtful, you know, leaving me here all by myself."

"But Sakuraaaa, I love you, and I did call at least once a month," he pouted, adding another finger as though that would earn him brownie points. 

Which, it did. 

"Alright, fine," Sakura relented with an evil grin. "You may fuck me on  _ one _ condition."

"Anything," he breathed, and her own breath hitched as he thumbed her clit. 

"You take me back to our stage, and let me do a show for you."

Naruto laughed,  _ really  _ laughed, and all but ripped his boxers off. Doubtless he remembered what she was talking about— that old, rusty car in the middle of the woods where they used to play— and he captured her lips in a playful, nipping kiss. 

"Is that all?" he asked, sapphire eyes glimmering as he rubbed the head of his sizable cock against her wetness. 

Almost to her limit as well, Sakura nodded, and Naruro kissed her neck and pushed inside her, filling her up inch by inch.

"You can give me a show anytime, Sakura-chan," he chuckled lowly as he began thrusting, in and out, slow and intense, and Sakura felt jarred with every movement he made. It was completely electric, and Sakura remembered exactly  _ why  _ it was that a real, live man with a pulse was  _ so  _ much better than a toy.

The slap of skin-on-skin filled the air, and though it made Sakura a little self-conscious about being in a house with other people, she decided that it didn't make a damn— not when Naruto curled a hand around her neck and  _ pressed  _ just so. Before long, she even found herself crying out again and again as Naruto picked up his pace and played with her nipples, the blond devil grinning like a fool the entire time. She had forgotten that he felt so thick, so heavy within her, and her pleasure built and curled hotly in her belly as they fucked.

"That's it," he panted, rubbing at her clit with strong, calloused fingers. "Say my name, Sakura."

And she did. Over and over and over, like a broken record until she came, and Naruto shortly after, spilling across her belly. 

"Where was this yesterday?" Naruto joked as he cleaned them up with his old shirt from the day before. "That should have been my welcome home present."

"Well  _ someone  _ was busy complaining and teasing Iruka about Kakashi while I was sneaking my hand up his thigh," Sakura snorted as he dodged a smack. "And then when I came up here last night… "

"Yeah," he agreed, pressing a kiss to her cheek. "I wouldn't have the first time since we've been apart to be any different, though— even if you do have dog breath right now."

"Naruto!"

Just because he was hot— incredibly, irresistibly so— didn't mean he could get away with saying stupid shit without getting smacked. As usual, he took his (light) beating with good grace, and all but dragged Sakura with him into the shower with him, peppering her with kisses and affection because, "Sakura-chaaaaaaan, I love you, you're so pretty."

Needless to say, Sakura was on cloud nine as she dressed comfortably in shorts and an old t-shirt (one of Ino's that she borrowed and never gave back) and padded downstairs for breakfast with Naruto hot on her heels. 

"Good morning, Iruka-sensei," she greeted Iruka, who was at the stove making enough pancakes to feed a small army. 

Flushing a bright red, Iruka stammered a good morning in return, unable to look Sakura in the eye, and it took a moment before the reason for his embarrassment registered with Sakura. 

He'd  _ heard  _ them having sex earlier. 

While Sakura turned an unattractive shade of red herself, Naruto seemed to have no such problem with the realization as he whistled a little tune and snatched pinches of pancake when Iruka wasn't looking. Then, as if unable to resist the temptation to tease their old counselor, Naruto cheerily brought it up in the most faux-innocent way that Sakura had ever seen. 

"So," Naruto began, leaning on the counter next to Iruka, a shit-eating grin stretching his cheeks. "Did we wake you up?"

Sakura laughed as Iruka smacked Naruto with the wooden ladle that had been hanging on the wall. 

"O-Of course you did!" Iruka huffed, full of righteous anger despite looking like a bird whose feathers had been ruffled with his messy bun of bed-head. "Don't you know better than to have sex in a house that has  _ other people  _ in it?"

"It was Sakura's idea!" Naruto protested, still grinning. "Besides, you and Kakashi sucked face in the living room most of yesterday."

"It was Kakashi's idea," Iruka shot back with the tiniest of grins, and as though he'd been summoned, Kakashi himself dragged into the kitchen, looking worse for wear. 

"I feel like shit," he croaked, gingerly easing himself into a chair as though in pain. 

At first, the medic in Sakura leaned forward to see what was the matter, and then it occurred to her why Kakashi might be a little achey. 

_ Ew, gross,  _ she thought, wishing she hadn't even noticed, but then Naruto set a plate of pancakes in front of her, and soon she was too busy stuffing her face to care. 

"I missed your pancakes, Iruka," Naruto groaned, stuffing half of one into his mouth all at one time. "Mine never taste right."

Iruka laughed and put a hand over Kakashi's. "That's because you, like your dumb dad, refuse to follow the recipe."

Kakashi looked positively  _ scandalized _ . "I am  _ not  _ dumb. I'm a famous sniper! I used to kill people for a living, I'm a tactical genius— I practically come with a pedigree!"

"Yes, light of my life, my sun and all my stars, but you can't heat up a can of chicken noodle soup without nearly burning the house down," Iruka teased him, and Sakura fought back a giggle.

"You've  _ seen _ me work," Kakashi protested, lip poking out pitifully. "Back when we were under Sarutobi. I  _ invented  _ the chidori tech."

Iruka soothingly kissed Kakashi's cheek, but the silver-haired ex-soldier still pouted. "Yes, but just because you can stick your hand through a man's chest doesn't make you capable or competent in terms of culinary skill."

Kakashi really did look pitiful, but after a few more sweet pecks from his boyfriend, he mellowed out enough to stop sulking and actually wake up enough to talk to his kids. 

(Kakashi usually never spoke to  _ anyone  _ until after the first half of his second cup of coffee, but Iruka had been a good influence in that area.)

"So, what are you kids up to today?" Kakashi asked, scratching his head not unlike a dog.

"Well, Naruto and I were planning on going to visit Bessie," Sakura grinned, knowing that Kakahi would recognize the name they gave the rusted '67 Mercedes that rested in the farthest reaches of the Hatake land. 

"Poor piece of junk," Kakashi lamented, only half-joking. "The strength it must have had to endure the torture you alley cats put it through with your 'concerts'. There's a reason I kicked you guys out of the house when you started that shit."

"Hey, my voice is just fine," Sakura huffed, folding her arms. "It's Naruto that croons like a hound dog."

Naruto had the grace to look sheepish. 

"Will you be back in time for lunch? It's Taco Tuesday," Iruka told them, waggling his eyebrows— his tacos really were a hell of a treat, and he knew it.

"We definitely should be," Naruto replied through a mouthful of pancake. "It's not that long of a walk there and back, and we won't need to spend much time there."

"Good, then get going," Kakashi grinned, exchanging a glance with Iruka. "We've got some business to take care of while you're gone."

"Aw, c'mon guys," Naruto whined, echoing Sakura's thoughts. "That's so gross!"

"Get your mind out of the gutter, that might not have even been what I meant," Kakashi smirked, looking like the cat that got the cream. 

"You read porn in public, in what world would that  _ not  _ be what you meant?"

"Maybe this one, you don't know."

"Bull _ shit. _ "

Sakura laughed herself sick as they went back and forth, and for the first time in a long time, she felt at home. Watching Kakashi and Naruto bicker and then fuss over the whipped cream can was deeply nostalgic, and Sakura could have stayed there forever. Iruka seemed to sense it, and he reached over and grabbed her hand with a knowing smile. 

_ Our idiots _ , the shine in his eyes seemed to say.  _ Our favorite knuckleheads. _

Sakura couldn't help but give her own answering smile.

  
  


***

"I absolutely  _ cannot  _ believe it's still here!" Naruro laughed, hopping up on Bessie's hood just like old times, gesturing for Sakura to follow. 

"Uh, I'm not sure where you think it would have gone, it can't exactly be driven without tires," Sakura giggled in response as Natuto lent her a hand. 

When they were younger, the top of that car felt like the top of the world, but now that they were adults, the hood crinkled a bit under their weight. Nevertheless, the green of the Konoha trees was just as vibrant, the breeze just as cool, and the aroma of the forest was still just as sweet as Naruto remembered it— and he couldn't help but pull Sakura to him for a soft, tender kiss. 

This was where they would come after soccer practice at the Center— all sweaty and gross and tired— and Sakura would sing and dance, and laugh as Naruto pretended to be her backup vocals. Sasuke, of course, sat in the grass and grumbled something about "idiots", but always had a faint blush on his cheeks any time the two of them would butcher what was supposed to be a beautiful love song for him. And, of course, as teenagers, this was where they came to—

Ah. Well. Sasuke could have fooled them before, but after that one time, he showed the both of them just how  _ much  _ he enjoyed their little performances on the hood of that car loudly and often. 

"So," Sakura grinned, turning to him with a dazzling smile as the sun reflected off of her porcelain skin. "What do you say?"

Naruto grinned, knowing  _ exactly  _ the right answer to that question. 

"Spice Girls?"

_ "Spice Girls." _

_ God, I love this woman, _ Naruto thought as he tried to keep his balance on Bessie's now-too-little hood while Sakura belted out lyrics and danced just like she used to when they were children. 

_ "Yo, I'll tell you what I want, what I really, really want, so tell me what you want, what you really, really want." _

Naruto laughed, but nearly fell when Sakura's dance moves got a little too hectic. Even so, she didn't stop even for a moment, just winked, snatched Naruto to her, and kept singing. Truly, she seemed like a force of nature, a dizzying hurricane that he loved being caught in. 

_ "You wanna get with me, you gotta listen carefully, you've got Em in the place who likes it in your face, you got G like MC who likes it on a Easy V doesn't come for free, she's a real lady, and as for me, ha you'll see!" _

And the way she shook her ass… really, being so pretty should be illegal. 

After they'd danced themselves silly and sang the lyrics in  _ all  _ the wrong order, they collapsed on the ground, breathless and giggling. Naruto was having the most fun he'd had in years, and as he held Sakura and threaded his hands through her hair, everything seemed to be as it should be. His heart was so full, and he could tell by her smile that hers was too. 

Naruto almost thought that maybe that joy could last forever, leaving them floating in the clouds for the rest of their lives… but then, when they stopped to think for a moment, Naruto's smile dimmed, and the light left Sakura's eyes. At once, they both remembered what they were missing, that the scene was yet incomplete without that little puzzle piece, with all its jagged edges and snarky comments to mellow them. A certain sickness settled in Naruto's stomach, and he turned away, unable to look at Sakura and say what they were both feeling. 

It wasn't the same. It would  _ never  _ be the same. 

"Say it," Sakura murmured, pulling away to look at him with an expression that made his knees grow weak. "You're thinking something. Say it."

Naruto hated the words. He nearly choked on them, but if Sakura asked something of him, he would damn well deliver or die trying. "I miss him."

Sakura shook her head. "I do too."

Right now, Sasuke would be between them, his head in Sakura's lap and his hand curled possessively on Naruto's thigh or through one of his belt loops. Undoubtedly, he would be telling them that the Spice Girls were dumb and  _ so  _ out, and that they were annoying and terrible performers, and then he'd sit up, grab Naruto by the collar, and kiss him until he couldn't breathe, only breaking away to repeat the action but with Sakura (a sight Naruto could  _ never  _ get enough of). 

There in that clearing, Naruto felt the ache he had for Sasuke as deeply as he ever had. Subconsciously, his hand moved to his chest to cover the scar that Sasuke put there… where he cut through Naruto's chest with a fistful of lightning. Naruto should have died that day—  _ would  _ have died if it weren't for the kyuubi. Maybe it would have been better if he had. He certainly wouldn't feel this pain, this  _ longing  _ if he were dead. 

"We can't live like this forever," Sakura told him, grabbing his hand a little too tightly. "Whatever you're thinking, stop. We can't  _ hurt  _ like this forever, and we  _ won't _ . We have to move on, we have to  _ live _ instead of just surviving _. _ "

With his heart hammering in his chest, Naruto let out what he'd been holding in for three years. "I don't know if I want to move on."

Sakura's expression was somewhere between concerned and confused as she turned to look him fully in the face. "Be realistic— he said it himself, he doesn't love us. Naruto, he  _ literally  _ ripped your heart to shreds."

"I know, but— "

"There are no excuses!" Sakura's voice sounded as strangled as Naruto felt, and her eyes were full of desperate pain. "Sasuke tried to kill you. He honestly  _ tried.  _ No amount of family issues or power-seeking or emotional trauma  _ excuses  _ that! And— and I can't lose you, Naruto. Not to him or to anyone."

Naruto shook his head. She was totally misunderstanding him. "Have you given up on him, my Sakura-chan?"

"W-what?" Confusion was written plainly across her delicate features, and Naruto cupped one of her cheeks with a too-large hand. 

"I don't have to fight him to the death to win him back over," Naruto told her, allowing himself a small smile. "I love him just as much as you do, and I believe that he can still redeem himself. Do you?"

"O-of course, it's never too late to turn from the wrong path, but I don't understand— "

"Then have faith, Sakura." Naruto could feel tears creeping into his eyes as he thought of Tsunade, who so clearly loved Orochimaru even though he was an evil bastard. He tried to put up the same strong front that Tsunade had perfected, but he was certain it came out wrong. "We love him, and we'll keep a place for him to come back to. He knows what's right, and he'll return to it one day."

"How?" Sakura's tone was full of wonder as she placed both of her hands on the one of Naruto's that rested on her cheek. "How do you do it?"

"Do what?" Naruto laughed "I didn't do anything yet."

Sakura smacked him lightly— a gesture of affection. "Baka. How do you stay so strong?"

"I'm not strong, I just don't know when to quit," he grinned, and just before he could kiss her, a rustling in the bushes interrupted them. Reluctant to give up their moment, they turned slowly to find Kakashi walking out of the woods. 

"Kaka-sensei, honestly," Sakura huffed, crossing her arms so very cutely. "Do you mind?"

Kakashi held his hands up in surrender. "I know, I know, but Tsunade called. Sakura, she needs you in her office."

Naruto's heart deflated. He turned to Sakura and all but pouted. "I thought you said you took this week off of  _ both  _ jobs."

"I did," Sakura replied grimly, standing to her feet. "It must be an emergency."

Kakashi nodded, and Naruto got up too, following obediently behind Sakura as they made their way back to the house. He really hoped that nothing serious had happened… he wasn't exactly in the mood for shooting someone on such a fine afternoon, but for Sakura-chan, he would. Knowing their luck, some terrible catastrophe struck and Sakura was being summoned to go deal with it, per usual. 

(Not for the first time, Naruto wished everyone would find someone else to solve their problems. Sakura was  _ his  _ personal catastrophe-fixer— they could all go find their own.) 

  
  
  


***

  
  


"Tsunade-sama, you wanted to see me?"

Tsunade's heart was heavy as she looked at her dear student, nearly her daughter in some ways. Strong, bright, and impossibly determined— Sakura was so much Tsunade that it was like looking in a mirror some days. She couldn't be more proud of Sakura and how much she had grown, both physically and mentally, and she could not have asked for a better assistant and potential heir. And yet, Sakura looked tired now— worn and world-weary— and Tsunade had a pretty good idea why. 

It was the same disposition that Sakura had affected when Sasuke first left Konoha. 

To see her beautiful Sakura wilted so, in the same way Tsunade had once wilted for many of the same reasons, was almost more than she could bear. Tsunade understood her grief, perhaps more than anyone could ever realize, and to see it in Sakura was to feel it twice. As the girl's mentor— as her  _ friend _ — Tsunade wished she could save Sakura that pain. She would take it all upon herself if she could, just to spare a young heart the agony that her old heart knew so well. 

… And yet it was upon Tsunade's shoulders to place an even larger burden on the girl than the one she already carried. 

"Sakura," Tsunade began, gesturing for her to sit in one of the chairs before the desk Tsunade sat behind. "I have something to ask of you."

"Anything, shishou," she replied, earnest, eager. There was a familiar spark in her eye, a floating ember from the fierce, forceful will she held within her, and Tsunade shook her head, fighting the urge to dismiss the girl and call off her plan altogether. 

It was true that the fire in Sakura's heart was something altogether indescribable, and Tsunade respected and admired it, but it could only carry a person so far before its light and warmth were not enough. She was about to ask Sakura to go where that light stood a great chance of being extinguished, which was the last thing Tsunade wanted to do, but if anyone could make it out and still hold their torch, it would be Sakura, which was exactly why she must be the one to brave the devil's lair and not another, weaker substitute. Tsunade was given no choice in the matter— it felt as though she never was. 

"Don't use absolutes," Tsunade muttered, already tasting the regret she was about to feel. "You may still reserve your right to say no."

Sakura, as proud and stubborn as ever, jutted out her chin and repeated herself. "Anything, shishou."

Tsunade sighed. 

"You are familiar with Orochimaru, yes?"

Sakura scowled— so  _ expressive  _ for an adult. No wonder her patients and coworkers often assumed that she was younger than she was. "Of course."

"Are you aware that he has started up a children's research hospital?"

"... ah, no," Sakura replied, quizzical. 

Tsunade nodded, continuing. "He's very secretive, but I know what he's like— what he's done in the past. I have reason to believe that he's doing illegal experiments on children… experiments whose side-effects and end results include death and various forms of insanity. I need eyes on the inside, I need solid proof, and there is only one way that I can think of to get it."

Realization flickered over Sakura's features. "You want me to be a spy for you."

Tsunade grunted. "That would be correct."

"But won't they know that I work for you?" she asked, tucking a strand of pink hair behind her ear. "You know I've met Orochimaru in passing, and I have no doubt that he's been keeping tabs."

_ Smart girl,  _ Tsunad thought, letting her appreciation show in her wry smile. "You are absolutely right, which is why he would also know that you love Sasuke more than anything— with the exception of Naruto, of course."

"So," Sakura said, her hands forming fists in her lap. "You want me to beg Orochimaru for a position on his staff under the guise of wanting to be closer to Sasuke so that I can be a spy for you."

"Yes. Will you do it?"

There were a few moments of tense silence where Tsunade wasn't sure what Sakura was going to say or do. Her jaw was locked, and her eyes were fixed firmly on the ground as though she were furious. Tsunade braced herself for Sakura's vehement rejection, but when Sakura looked up to stare into Tsunade's eyes, it was with quiet determination.

"I will," she replied, steel backing the emerald of her eyes. 

Without even having realized she'd done it, Tsunade stood, walked around her desk, and pulled Sakura from her seat into a heartfelt embrace. Her heart bled for the girl, and once again she wished that she could take all of Sakura's burden upon herself, but deep down, she knew that Sakura was strong enough to bear it. 

With a heart that was filled to the brim with pride, Tsunade spoke gently to the daughter she was lucky enough to have come across as they held one another.

"Sakura, this mission is dangerous."

"I know, Tsunade-sama."

"You are very precious to me."

"I know, Tsunade-sama."

"You must not fail."

"I know, Tsunade-sama."

"Good," Tsunade smiled, pulling back to look at her pupil. "You are strong, and you are brave— a conqueror. Do you remember when you first came into this very office and harassed me to train you?"

Sakura smiled sheepishly. "How could I forget? You changed my life, Tsunade-sama."

"No," Tsunade chuckled, patting Sakura's cheek. " _ You  _ changed your life. Not many people have that power— in fact, most people  _ never _ have the strength to change. No longer are you the scared little girl who hides behind her boys, trusting them to defend her, but a strong woman who can defend herself. In all your play-acting for this mission, do not forget that."

"I won't," came Sakura's self-assured reply. "I can't go back to being that girl. She's dead and buried, Tsunade-sama."

Tsunade nodded. "Excellent. You may tell Naruto and Kakashi, but no one else needs to be involved."

"I understand."

"Then go," Tsunade told her with a tired smile. "Go, and be well, Sakura-chan."

As soon as the door to her office clicked shut, Tsunade collapsed in her office chair and sent Shizune a text to bring her some sake. She would need it to get through all the  _ fucking  _ paperwork and decisions about the funeral that was to take place the next day. 


	3. The Funeral

On the day of the funeral, it was raining so hard in Konoha that it was as though the city itself wept. 

Kurenai came over to the Hatake estate that morning, bringing plates of food and introducing Naruto to Mirai, her toddler. Usually, Kakashi disliked having visitors, but was nice to have company— it served to distract the household from all from the tumultuous emotions that were bouncing around. Besides, Kurenai had always been a dear friend, and Kakashi had done much the same for her when her husband died. Such a visit was just common courtesy, but from her, it felt a little more meaningful. 

(And, admittedly, Kakashi  _ did  _ love watching Naruto laugh and try to get Mirai to call Kakashi "Bakashi," much to Kurenai's dismay.)

"How did you do it?" Kurenai sighed longsufferingly as Naruto rode Mirai around on his shoulders. "How,  _ how  _ did you keep Naruto in a car seat? Mirai doesn't even unbuckle it, she just wiggles out!"

Kakashi shrugged. "I never had to do any of that. I adopted mine once they were potty trained and mostly capable of riding in a car without much incident. But in order to give Naruto his vaccinations, we had to strap him down, and what I did then, well… "

Kurenai blinked at him expectantly, and Kakashi hesitated, wondering if he should reveal just how much of an odd parent he'd been, but then once a crash rang throughout the house from another room, he remembered that he didn't care.

"Work out what cuts off the blood flow and then ease it a bit," he replied, deadpan, and Kurenai laughed as though he were joking. "If I was smart, I would have thought to use a blowgun."

"Kakashi, we broke your other lamp!" Naruto called from across the house, wisely staying out of sight. 

"Great," Kakashi grumbled, but Iruka patted his knee with a brilliant smile and went to the kitchen, likely to fetch a broom and dustpan. Kakashi's eyes followed him the whole way, watching the sway of his hips and the curve of his ass as he walked, and  _ damn _ if Kakashi wasn't crazy for the man. 

"You really love him, don't you?" Kurenai laughed, picking up on where Kakashi's attention had been. 

"More than anything," was Kakashi's reply. "I don't deserve him."

"It's not about what we deserve," she smiled softly. "Did Asuma deserve to die?"

Kakashi's words died in his throat. The sadness in Kurenai's smile cut him to the bone, and he remembered coming over to her house and bringing food to  _ her _ on the day of Asuma's funeral. There had been no happy, smiling Mirai to lighten the mood then— no, there was only Kurenai's bitter tears, and Kakashi's shaky hand on her shoulder. 

"No, he didn't," Kakashi replied. 

"I miss him every day."

Kakashi didn't have to imagine what that felt like. "He would be so proud of you. You're doing a great job as a parent, even though you're all alone."

Kurenai's expression was distant and wistful, but when she looked at Kakashi, her gaze was so intense that he felt bare even with his mask. "I've never once been alone through any of it, which is why I'm here today." She nodded to Iruka, who was coming through with a dustpan full of broken glass. "Keeping both you  _ and  _ Naruto in line is too big of a job for one person, even for your Super-Ruka."

Super-Ruka… Kakashi would have to remember that. 

Of course, Kurenai was right, perhaps in more ways than she realized. Naruto might end up being a handful at the funeral, and not just emotionally so— if Orochimaru showed up, which he undoubtedly would, he would most likely bring Sasuke just to be a sadistic asshole and watch a fight break out. However, since it would be in  _ everyone's  _ best interest to keep the funeral home from being leveled, it would fall to Kakashi, Iruka, and Sakura to hold Naruto back from doing anything stupid.

… that was, if Sakura didn't swing first. 

"Thank you, Kurenai," he told her, and he meant it. "You're a blessing."

"Do me a favor and tell my daughter that when I'm trying to put her shoes on," Kurenai laughed, and Kakashi couldn't help but grin. 

Maybe today wouldn't be so much of a disaster after all. 

  
  
  


***

  
  


Despite her confidence in her own abilities, Sakura was still shaken to the core after what Kakashi said when pulled her aside before they drove to the funeral home. 

_ "Orochimaru will come today, Sakura," _ he'd told her, his voice low and his eyes fierce.  _ "He and whoever he brings will do anything and everything they can to antagonize you and especially Naruto, but you can't rise to the bait. These people are killers, Sakura, more so than you. Just because you and Naruto beep when you go through a metal detector does not mean that you can tackle any one of them, especially Orochimaru himself. Have I made myself clear?" _

Of course he had. The message was crystal:  _ do not engage.  _ She wanted to tell him about Tsunade's mission for her like she had Naruto the night before, but once she'd nodded her agreement, he went back to lazy, eye-smile Kakashi, who was no longer available to pass on pertinent information to because he was too busy making sure no one had overheard them. 

_ Men,  _ Sakura thought viciously as everyone packed into one car.  _ Can't see anything past the scope of their emotional issues.  _

Sakura spent most of the car ride sulking about being ignored by Kakashi, but by the time they had settled onto their benches at the funeral home, her anger and frustration bled out to leave only grief and concern for Naruto, who was very clearly unwell. He hardly said a word the whole ride there, and his face was ashen. It seemed as though he could hardly breathe through the weight of grief upon his shoulders. 

"You don't have to do this," she murmured, pressing the side of her body into his more firmly in an effort to provide comfort. "We can take the keys and leave until it's over."

Naruto only shook his head. "I have to stay."

Doubtless, he thought so because Tsunade had asked him to do Jiraiya's eulogy— but between having someone else do the eulogy and having to schedule a second funeral because Naruto killed himself trying to  _ give  _ the eulogy, Sakura would take the former.

"He doesn't need a eulogy bad enough for you to have an emotional breakdown over," she told him, grabbing his hand in her own. "If you need to leave, then we will leave."

He smiled, but it was hollow. "Thank you, Sakura-chan. I'm okay."

He most certainly was  _ not.  _

Sakura had observed Naruto for many years, and she had come to the conclusion that he was much like fire. When he was joyful, his laughter was full of bright flashes and crackles like sparklers and pyrotechnics; when enraged, his anger was a wildfire in the face of those who would bring it to the surface; and perhaps best of all, when Naruto loved, it was like the warmth of a hearth fire— gentle, comforting, and ever-present. 

But his grief, after the initial explosion, was worryingly cold. 

"I love you," she whispered, pressing a subtle kiss to his shoulder. 

"I love you too."

Not long after Sakura asked Naruto if he wanted to leave for the second time that afternoon, the funeral began and all attention was focused at the front of the room, on the first speaker behind the closed casket that held Jiraiya's body. About halfway into the speech, Sakura was hyperaware of the door opening and closing behind a party entering the room, and the hair on her neck stood up as she remembered Kakashi's warning. Deep in her bones, she knew who it was that had come, but she couldn't stop herself from turning to see anyways. 

Orochimaru— tall, pale, and utterly sinister— stood at the back of the room, followed by a gray-haired young man Sakura knew to be Kabuto, his assistant, some redhead Sakura had never met, and… and…

God, had Sasuke grown. 

All Sakura got was the tiniest of glances out of the corner of her eye, but from that alone, she could tell that he had gotten taller and broader, nearly matching Naruto inch for inch in terms of height and breadth. He was so devastatingly handsome, just the way he'd always been, but now with an air of manhood about him that he had previously lacked. Sakura nearly choked on the air she breathed, but forced herself to refocus her gaze to the front of the room. 

Naruto never turned his head, but squeezed Sakura's hand knowingly. "He's here, isn't he?"

"Orochimaru?" If Sakura could keep it from Naruto for just a little longer, she would, but as he shook his head, she knew that he was already well aware.

"Sasuke. I can feel him, Sakura, so tell me if he's here or if I'm going fucking crazy."

"He's here," she said, and Naruto nodded, his expression unchanged from the solemn gaze he'd affected before, which Sakura knew meant that he was ripping himself apart on the inside.

"Fuck it," Naruto muttered, crumpling his sheet of notes for the eulogy. "I don't give a  _ damn  _ what happens, I'm going to do this and do it right."

Sakura really wasn't sure what all that was about, but all too quickly it came time for Naruto to speak, and she braced herself for Naruto to break down, to start screaming at Sasuke across the room or something else similarly horrific, but nothing like that came. Instead, there was a moment or two of silence, and then Naruto just… spoke. 

If anyone had asked Sakura what was said during that eulogy, she wouldn't have been able to recall a single detail. It wasn't that the words were small or insignificant, nothing like that, just… the feeling in that moment, the tidal wave of emotions that overtook the room, was too big, too all-encompassing for her to remember anything else but how her heart broke for her precious people. For the first time in years, Sakura let a room full of relative strangers see her cry as she mourned— for Jiraiya, for Tsunade's broken heart, for Naruto's own hurt. 

But she did not only cry.

No, she laughed, for the joy of having known Jiraiya and the memories of which Naruto spoke. She smiled sincerely at the thought of those stupidly perverted books that would never get another sequel, the leers that Jiraiya would throw Tsunade's way every now and again, and the many, many womens' onsens that would go unharassed. 

"And where there is pain," Naruto concluded, looking directly at Sakura with one of his impossible smiles, "There is also joy, if one looks hard enough to find it. That is what I learned the most from Jiraiya— my godfather, my mentor, and my friend."

Sakura had never been more proud of Naruto, and the rest of the funeral was over before she was really able to recover from the effects of his soul-searing words. She seemed stuck in some sort of mental limbo even as Naruto guided her to where the burial would be, and she only truly came back to herself once Naruto, Kakashi, Tsunade, and Iruka were gathered around her, talking in quiet reverence with whatever guest came to pay their respects. 

"You were incredible up there, Naruto," she told him, reaching up to cup his cheek with one hand. "It was perfect. If he were here, he would be so proud.  _ I'm  _ so proud."

Naruto smiled softly, capturing her hand and pressing a kiss to her palm. "I don't think I even remember what I said."

She laughed lightly at that, and let the resulting smile linger in fondness for her favorite knucklehead. "Baka. I love you."

"I love you too, Sakura-chan."

After a few more moments of greeting guests and bidding them goodbye with heartfelt hugs, Sakura felt more and more uneasy. She could see that Tsunade was also tense, and likely for the same reasons— it was rare for Orochimaru to make an appearance somewhere without a purpose, and it was rarer still for him to appear in the same place as Tsunade and not pay a not-so-pleasant visit. That could only mean one of two things— either he was there for different reasons than they thought, or he was planning something worse than just being a pain in the ass. 

A minute more of uneasiness passed, then two, and then Sakura felt an awful, crawling sensation under her skin as a familiar voice spoke from behind them. 

"Tsunade."

Orochimaru's voice had the same effect as lukewarm oil sliding down Sakura's back, and she itched to throw a punch at him without even having seen his face. Luckily, her shishou seemed to be handling it better than she was— Tsunade's eyes may have been red from crying, but her gaze was unreadable, showing no fear or dread that could be exploited. 

"Orochimaru."

All of them turned then— Kakashi, Iruka, Naruto, Tsunade, and Sakura— to see Orochimaru, dressed in a pressed white shirt and black slacks, with his long hair pulled back into a neat ponytail. Sakura felt sick at the sight of him as he smirked at Tsunade, and Kakashi put a hand gently on her wrist in warning. 

"I'm sorry I was late," he said simply, stepping closer to Tsunade than anyone there was comfortable with. "Traffic was inconvenient."

"You needn't have come if it was too much trouble," Tsunade replied evenly. 

Orochimaru smiled, placing a hand on Tsunade's shoulder. "It is a sad day, Tsunade-hime, and I am, at heart, only human."

Tsunade was fighting the urge to strike her former lover. Sakura could feel it, and she subconsciously moved her hand to where a tiny gun was strapped closely to her thigh beneath the hem of her dress. Fortunately for all of them, Orochimaru took a step back, and the tension in the air eased ever so slightly.

Sakura's hand dropped back to her side, and Naruto's hand rested on her shoulder as they caught sight of Sasuke approaching with Kabuto and the unfamiliar redhead in tow. Sakura's heart hammered painfully in her chest as he drew ever closer, and she distantly wondered if anyone would notice her having a stroke if it came to that.

"Orochimaru-sama," Sasuke spoke as he came to a halt in front of his mentor, never even sparing Sakura and Naruto a glance. "We're ready to go whenever you're done."

"Excellent," Orochimaru grinned. "Say, you all are old friends, and the adults are talking here— why don't you kids go off and play together somewhere, hm?"

"I don't see any friends," the redhead smirked, and the arm she laced through Sasuke's didn't go unnoticed, at least to Sakura. "All I see is a big forehead and too much orange for a funeral.

Any other time, Sakura would just ignore it— yes, even  _ with  _ the forehead comment— but she was painfully aware that this was a prime opportunity to begin her play-acting and convince Orochimaru of her supposed undying love and loyalty to Sasuke. It would be a shame if she didn't take advantage of this chance to play the jealous, jilted lover.

Besides, she wouldn't even have to fake it all that much. 

"That's because there are none here for you," Sakura snapped, eyeing the redhead like she would a bucket of vomit. "We don't let people of your…  _ caliber  _ just hang about, you know. No dogs on the furniture and what have you."

Kakashi looked at Sakura, alarmed, but she paid him no heed. He should have listened to her earlier and he would have been in the loop. 

"Excuse me?" The redhead fumed, snatching her arm away from Sasuke and stepping closer to Sakura, hoping to intimidate her. 

"Ladies, ladies, fight all you wish, but do have some respect for my dear dead friend," Orochimaru purred pleasantly, but there must have been some seriousness to his words because the redhead stormed off, dragging Sasuke with her. Kabuto merely chuckled and walked away, and Sakura followed hot on their heels, dragging Naruto with her. Now that she had an excuse to cause trouble, Sakura wasn't about to let it out of her sight. 

This time, when she caught up to Sasuke and the redhead, Sakura didn't waste any time beating around the bush. She went straight for the throat— literally.

Attacking from behind, she swept her legs underneath the redhead's, and the other woman took a hard fall on the asphalt of the parking lot. Before she had time to recover, Sakura kicked her in the side and viciously pressed a foot down on her throat as Sasuke watched impassively. Whether he chose to acknowledge it or not, this was a display of dominance on Sakura's part, and she hoped he was paying close attention— not completely for selfish reasons, but the sentiment was still there.

"This isn't your turf, bitch," Sakura snarled as the redhead sputtered beneath her, clawing weakly at her foot and gasping for air. "I own this city, and while you're in it, I own  _ you. _ Choose your enemies more carefully, you fool— I'm not one you want to make."

Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin when Sasuke chuckled lowly, dark eyes studying her with ever-so-slight amusement. 

"My, my, Sakura-chan," he said, his voice rich and deep. "It seems the lamb has turned lioness."

"It seems to  _ me  _ you're still sucking Orochimaru's cock, which means you have no right to even look at her, much less speak to her," Naruto growled, stepping into Sasuke's personal pace. "And she's  _ always  _ been a lioness, you were just never able to see past your nose to find that out."

Sasuke huffed a dark, unsettling laugh, and Sakura unwittingly removed some of the pressure from the redhead's throat— enough for her to speak, anyways. 

" _Help…_ _me…_ " she croaked, looking up at Sasuke, who rolled his eyes.

"You're fine. If she wanted to kill you, she would have just shot you."

At that, all three of them— Naruto, Sakura,  _ and  _ the redhead— gave him quizzical looks, but he just smirked.

"Our dear Sakura-chan is always packing. Isn't that right, Naruto-kun?"

"You're too familiar," Naruto snapped, fists balling at his side.

Before the situation could escalate any further, Kabuto rejoined them, twirling a key around his fingers with an evil glint in his eyes. Sakura glared at him, but he passed her by without acknowledging her at all.

"I hope I'm not interrupting anything," he chuckled, glancing briefly at Sakura's foot squashing the redhead's throat, "but Orochimaru asked us to start the drive back. He has more business to take care of here than he thought, and he'd rather us not hang around."

"Hn." 

That was Sasuke's signature response, and Sakura wished she could choke him as she let the redhead up. Ever polite, Sakura offered her a hand up, then pulled her close to murmur in her ear, just for good measure. 

"Show your face around here again," Sakura warned her lowly, "and they'll be bringing you home in a bucket."

Looking justly frightened and more than a little angry, the redhead scrambled backwards into the safety of her companions. It wasn't until they disappeared from sight that Sakura allowed herself to relax, and Naruto wrapped his arms around her from the back, supporting her as her knees grew weak.

"I've got you," he told her, placing his hands on her shoulders. In the height of his emotional turmoil, his nails had grown into claws, and Sakura knew that if she turned around, his eyes would be kyuubi red— by all rights, she should be helping him as he battled for dominance with the rebelling AI tech in his body, and yet here she was yet again,  _ weak _ . Physically, emotionally, mentally  _ weak.  _ Dead weight, as usual.

In a fit of rage, she ripped herself away from Naruto and stormed off, tears forming in her eyes as she left. She knew he would understand what she was feeling, and would forgive her later for abandoning him, but guilt still ate corrosively at her as she made her way back to the gravesite.

_ Weak,  _ a voice in her head sneered at her, sounding suspiciously like Sasuke.  _ Pitiful. Pathetic. _

"No!" She cried, vicious and wounded.

Nevertheless, the voice— Sasuke— persisted.

_ Useless. Annoying. Tiresome. _

Those thoughts consumed her, and before she knew it, her vision was blurred by tears. Even so, she forced herself into a half-jog, running from her past self, from everything she thought she had kicked and punched out of existence. She had always been slower, weaker, and just generally  _ worse  _ at everything than Sasuke and Naruto, she had  _ always  _ held them back, and now here she was again, being stupid and worthless and  _ awful _ — 

Her train of thought slammed to a halt as she ran straight into a solid wall of  _ person  _ that she hadn't been able to see through her tears. 

"Well, well, well, little Sakura-chan," Orochimaru said, steadying her shoulders with hands as cold as ice. "Why do you cry?"

Once Sakura had wiped her tears away, she could see the reptilian slits of his pupils, and at once she felt trapped, like a little bird in the grasp of a constrictor. She panicked for a moment, unable to move, until she realized what a  _ golden _ opportunity had just landed in her lap. 

"Orochimaru-sama," she cried helplessly, her tears gushing once more. "Sasuke-kun doesn't love me anymore."

"I see," he hummed, thumbing one tear away from her cheek. Sakura had to fight not to flinch away from his touch, but in this she could not,  _ would  _ not fail, not in this. She held firm, and even leaned into his hand despite her every instinct's desperate protesting. 

"Orochimaru-sama, I am no one," she began hoarsely, remembering the speech she had given Tsunade three years ago in her office. "All I have is my medical skill— Tsunade-sama trained me— and these two hands. I beg of you, let me work for you at your new hospital!"

He raised a brow at that, amused. "Why should you seek to be under me? You surely must have everything you want under working for our precious Tsunade."

"Everything," Sakura agreed, letting desperation creep into her words. "Everything but what I want the most."

Realization dawned in Orochimaru's eyes, and the resulting smile could have curdled milk. 

"You think that working for me will bring you closer to your Sasuke-kun," he chuckled, ever so slightly incredulous. 

_ Time to show some more weakness,  _ she thought, and averted her eyes. "Will it not?"

"It certainly would," Orochimaru mused, rubbing at his chin in thought. "But you would betray Tsunade for a boy who has broken your heart, betrayed every principle you live your life by, and has no use for you? I find that hard to believe."

"I would betray Tsunade for  _ love _ , Orochimaru-sama," she replied with all the earnest she could muster. Sakura hated the words as soon as she thought them, but she had a feeling she would be saying shit she hated for a good while yet if she didn't die here talking to this dangerous bastard. "Sasuke is  _ everything  _ to me, and if there is even a chance… I will do anything."

"Those are strong words, little Sakura. But how do I know you aren't a spy, sent to destroy what I am trying to build?"

"I guess you don't," Sakura replied, having thought at length about the answer to that question. "But I would be so bold to say that if I were, you would be more than capable of putting a bullet through my skull before I got away with too very much."

At that, Orochimaru threw back his head and laughed,  _ truly  _ laughed, from deep in his belly. Sakura reflexively reached for her gun, but Orochimaru reached out a hand to her, and she paused, unsure of what he wanted.

"Come, Sakura-chan, shake my hand," he chuckled, and as she did, he pulled her close, still smiling too widely to be normal. 

"You are obviously a very skilled young woman, as you bear the Byakugou, and your help and information may prove invaluable in my research," he intoned softly, his breath tickling her ear. "But if you betray me in any way, know that your death will be nowhere near as short, simple, or painless as a bullet to the head."

Sakura swallowed thickly, but nodded. "Yes, Orochimaru-sama."

Then he released her and stepped back, and after a pause, he added, "You may still have your visits with Tsunade and the kyuubi vessel— do as you will, but do not cross me, little girl."

"You are very gracious, Orochimaru-sama," she gushed, dropping to her knees before him, secretly a little genuinely grateful for a chance to keep in contact with her precious people out in the open. "Thank you."

"Of course," he smiled, turning away. "I will see you tomorrow morning at the hospital, yes?"

"Yes, Orochimaru-sama."

"Eight o'clock is fine with me, but you may be early. I find the day lasts so much longer when it begins in a timely manner."

Sakura nodded, understanding exactly what he meant. Do  _ not  _ be late. 

"Excellent," Orochimaru said as he walked away. "Farewell, then, Sakura-chan. Give Tsunade my love."

Sakura most certainly would, once she found the strength to stand. 

  
  


***

  
  


Late that evening, when Naruto and Sakura were snuggled up on the couch at the Hatake mansion, Naruto couldn't help but stare at the leather bound book that sat half on his lap, half on Sakura's. There were designs tracing over the front in a lovely gold color, and in the center was inscribed Jiraiya's name.

It was Jiraiya's journal. 

Tsunade had given it to him not long after the incident with Sasuke, and so far he had been treating it as though it were an extremely delicate explosive. He was terrified to even open the damn thing, and yet he itched to know why, exactly, Jiraiya had willed it to him. Back to her usual level-headed self after her minor breakdown, Sakura had been the one to encourage him to at least get used to being in proximity with it, which is why it was sitting between them, seeming to stare menacingly at Naruto as if to say  _ read me and I'll poke your eyes out, knucklehead. _

So far, this little exercise wasn't exactly helping him, since Naruto couldn't even look at the journal without trying to give it human qualities. 

"You don't have to read it now," Sakura told him gently, taking it away and setting it on the other side of her. "You've had a hell of a day, Naruto. It's okay to give yourself a break."

Naruto sighed, pulling his beautiful Sakura-chan closer to him— damn her, she really was always right. 

"I guess I can leave it be for now," he said, nuzzling his nose into her hair. "I have had a rough day."

Rough day was the understatement of the decade. Seeing Sasuke again had been the worst thing Naruto had ever been through, second only to the time Sasuke tried to  _ fucking kill him.  _ He was so fucking pretty, the smug bastard, and the way he'd sneered at Naruto and taunted Sakura… it was unbelievable. For a moment, Naruto had wondered if there was even a little bit of  _ their _ Sasuke— the real Sasuke— left in that prideful asshole, but then he saw that small, almost unrecognizable flash of hurt when Naruto made the comment about being too familiar, and he knew that Sasuke was still there, just drowning in his anger and desire for revenge. 

Sasuke's plight was a heavy weight on Naruto's shoulders, and coupled with the fact that Sakura would be down in that pit of adders all by herself, with no buffer between herself and Kabuto, the redhead bitch, and Orochimaru, it was almost enough for Naruto to forbid the mission entirely. Not that Sakura (or Tsunade for that matter) would listen, but Naruto could damn sure be pretty convincing when he tried— and he would try so very hard if it meant his Sakura-chan would stay safe and sound. 

"It's going to be okay," Sakura murmured, turning to face him, her eyelids heavy with exhaustion. "I promise, Naruto, everything will be okay. Maybe not now… but one day."

His heart swelled with love for her as she pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth, fondly brushing aside a piece of his hair. As usual, Sakura was right— she was a damn good doctor, a better surgeon, and an equally strong fighter. She was everything and more, and Naruto was wrong not to have full faith in her. Just as Naruto had faith in Sakura, he should also have faith in Sasuke to overcome his demons and find his way home. Everything might not be okay now, but… 

Well, things couldn't be awful forever, could they?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry if this is a lot at one time, but this story has me in a whole choke hold


	4. Healthcare and Attempted Homicide

Sasuke was  _ pissed.  _

It wasn't like it was something little this time, though his temper had been known to toe the line of petty on occasion. No, this was  _ big _ , and the worst thing about it was that Sasuke wasn't sure who he was more angry with. He could definitely justify being angry with Orochimaru who had evidently  _ hired  _ the pink-haired  _ disaster  _ inserting an IV into an unfortunate "patient", but there was also plenty of reason to be mad at the girl herself, since she had doubtless come up with some sort of harebrained scheme to wiggle her way into Orochimaru's good books… however, at present, the most evident subject of Sasuke's ire was himself, mainly because he found himself  _ giving a shit  _ whether she was there or not. 

When Sakura caught sight of him, she turned her full body towards him and waved, and Sasuke could have laid an egg. 

_ What the fuck is happening here? _

As far as Sasuke knew, it was impossible that Sakura had given up her morals and ideals to  _ voluntarily  _ work in a place like this. The Sakura he knew would rather saw off her own arm than be part of the reason why the screams of children rang through these hospital halls. Sasuke wasn't too keen on it himself, but he  _ knew  _ Sakura, and that wasn't something she could be still and ignore.

So  _ what the fuck. _

"Good morning, Sasuke-kun," she greeted him, fixing him with a smile sweet enough to fuck up his teeth for years. 

"Hn."

This time, Sasuke wasn't even trying to be an ass, he just had no idea what he should actually say. 

Instead of brushing past her like he would have anyone else, he changed direction, taking the long route to Orochimaru's office. The only reason he was at the hospital anyways was because the slimy bastard hadn't showed up for their regular training— which was ridiculous, since Sasuke had come to him for  _ power  _ to start with. Power to kill. Power to  _ destroy _ . Power to take his revenge on the man that killed his family in cold blood and left him orphaned and alone and— 

"Ah, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru greeted him, looking up from his paperwork. "Your training. I forgot about it entirely. Perhaps I shall join you after lunch and put everything to right?"

"Why is she here?" Sasuke snarled, and Orochimaru chuckled at his ferocity. 

"Now, Sasuke-kun, I thought you would be pleased to see your dear friend finally realizing what side she should be on," the scientist grinned, removing his reading glasses.

_ As if _ , Sasuke wanted to retort, thinking back to how protective Sakura had been of children back at the Center. Instead, he bit his tongue and tried the more rational approach. 

"Have you considered the fact that she could be a spy?" Sasuke certainly had— it was the  _ only  _ reason that she could be persuaded to come to a place like this without a really big gun and the intention to kill every last employee she could find. 

Orochimaru shook his head with a tiny, snake-like smile, as though he were speaking to a child that had no idea what they were talking about. "Have you considered that I know Tsunade well enough to know that she would  _ never  _ risk her precious people even for the purpose of spying? She's too soft, Sasuke-kun, they all are."

Sasuke wanted to scream. That's  _ exactly  _ what they wanted Orochimaru to think, but Sasuke knew firsthand how fierce Sakura could be— for example, the time she took a beating and a knife to the arm just to get a few good blows in on a bully before Sasuke stepped in to save her. If Tsunade was anything like Sakura (and all evidence pointed to that conclusion), then she was fully capable of subterfuge, no matter the risk. Doubtless, the two of them working together was a force to be reckoned with, and Sasuke had half a mind to tell Orochimaru just how wrong he was.

… but, Orochimaru  _ had  _ missed Sasuke's training and hired his stupidly pretty ex. That was pretty low for someone who wanted Sasuke's body for experimentation. Maybe, just this once, Sasuke would handle things on his own— discreetly. It wasn't that he cared whether or not Sakura got busted, if she did, then she just did, but it would be much less troublesome to handle things quietly. 

"Fine," he huffed, turning from the door. "One-thirty?"

"I'll see you then."

That taken care of, Sasuke stormed back the way he had come, only to find Sakura gone. With a frustrated growl, he turned and walked through the other halls, peeking in rooms until he caught a flash of pink out of the corner of his eye and charged in, grabbing her by the elbow. 

"Sakura, we need to talk," he seethed when she looked at him questioningly. "Now."

"Then talk, Sasuke-kun," she replied sunnily as she checked some box or other on the clipboard she was holding. "I'm a busy woman these days— surely you can appreciate that?"

"In private," he insisted, but she only looked him up and down and continued with checking her boxes.

Sasuke ground his teeth together with impatience. He didn't have time for this. Finally resorting to physical force, he tightened his grip and yanked on her arm—  _ hard _ — but found that she was rather unaffected by it. In fact, she raised a delicate pink brow at him as he rubbed at his now-sore elbow, looking rather like the cat that caught the canary. 

"Try all you'd like, Sasuke-kun, but I'm afraid you'll just have to wait until I'm available."

The  _ hell  _ he would. Sasuke snarled and lifted Sakura bodily off the ground, throwing her over his shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes. Doubtless, she could have shattered every bone in his body if she'd have wanted with that enhanced strength of hers, but he had a feeling she wouldn't— call it intuition, call it a lucky guess, call it whatever, but she only pounded his back with her fists hard enough to bruise, choosing not to use her full, bone-crushing strength. 

"Let me down!" Sakura squirmed, nearly smacking Sasuke in the nose with one of her flailing feet. "I'm a grown woman, this is  _ not  _ funny!"

… it was a little funny, but Sasuke wasn't in a laughing mood. With maximum efficiency, he found an unlocked storage closet and yanked it open, setting Sakura down and fumbling for a light switch and a lock at the same time. Once he could see and was sure that he wouldn't be interrupted, he rounded on Sakura with all the fury he could muster. 

"You are  _ insane, _ " he hissed, backing Sakura into a corner. "You're going to get yourself killed and  _ worse _ ."

For a moment, Sakura said nothing, and those big green eyes studied him warily, looking him up and down before settling in to meet his gaze, and Sasuke felt… open. Then, as though she had realized something, Sakura smiled.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You're here as a spy," he snarled, gripping the front of her scrubs and pulling her close. "Maybe you can fool Orochimaru, but you won't fool me."

Sakura shrugged, and her nonchalance irked Sasuke more than he cared to admit. "I admit to nothing."

"I could tell him, you know," Sasuke threatened, releasing her. "It would be my word against yours."

A pink brow arched. "And?"

Stupid, idiot woman— she was as bad as Naruto. Couldn't she see that this wasn't a place for her? 

"And it will be as I said," he snapped. "Your torture and inevitable death."

"Do you think I fear death?"

That caught Sasuke's attention. 

"I never took you for a fool."

"I'm not," she told him, narrowing her gaze. Unrelenting, she stared him down as though he were nothing, and it would almost have been intimidating if she hadn't been so short next to him. Nevertheless, Sasuke was never one to give a damn about intimidation tactics, and he stared right back at her with equal ferocity.

"If you die early, it'll be your own fault."

At that, her expression softened— and soured somewhat— despite the half-smile she put up. 

"No offense," she intoned, the spark of a challenge in her eyes, "But why do you care?"

His reply was immediate, reflexive. "I don't, " he huffed, folding his arms. 

"Then why all the fuss?"

"Because I never want to see your face again."

Sasuke wouldn't have been concerned if Sakura had looked hurt, or cried, or done something Sakura-esque, but instead, her face went totally blank. She was devoid of all emotion and so unlike herself that Sasuke was taken aback. 

"Then get the hell out of my way," she said, her voice frigid. "I have better things to do than stand here and talk to you."

"On one condition," he pressed, crowding her against a shelf of medicines as she tried to avoid touching him despite their proximity. "You clock out at the end of the day, and you never show your face here again."

"No."

Sasuke wasn't sure he heard correctly, so he decided he would ask Sakura to repeat herself. She couldn't possibly be that stupid, could she?

"Come again?" he challenged, nose-to-nose with his ex-lover. 

"Are you deaf?" she snapped, shoving his chest away from her with brute force. "Get lost, asshole."

Rage boiled hot and tight in Sasuke's chest. How dare she— how  _ dare  _ she? His body moved of its own accord, pulling his fist back, activating his chidori lightning tech, and punching solid and true with a fistful of lightning in less than a second. If Sakura had been a microsecond slower, he would have been able to feel her heart giving its last sluggish pumps, but she must have predicted his reaction because her body hit the floor before he could strike her. Still, when he realized that his blow had only managed to fry a couple medicine bottles, he was shocked to see her eyes so full of hurt. 

Sitting there beneath him, with tears welling in her eyes, Sakura reminded him of her old self from their pre-Kakashi days. She spent her childhood in constant fear and neglect, and when she wasn't vying for attention from all the wrong places, she was crying to release all of her hurt. Sasuke remembered a time when he would do  _ anything  _ to make sure she never cried again— remembered how he broke the arms of that boy, the one with the knife, who was damn near fifteen years-old to their twelve years. Sasuke was going to kill him for what he did to his Sakura-chan, too, if she hadn't stopped it. 

And now… now Sasuke had almost killed her himself. 

Mortification washed over him in an instant.

"Sakura… " His words died in his throat. How was he supposed to handle this? An apology… ? It seemed as though they were a little beyond that point. But what else could he possibly say? Oops?

So distracted was Sasuke by his inner turmoil that he completely—  _ completely _ — missed Sakura's movement. With a malicious expression, she swept her legs under Sasuke's (a move he should have foreseen, since it was her favorite), knocking him to the floor, and she even got in one good punch to the left side of his face before she took off down the hall, disappearing from view. Idly, Sasuke felt of his eye and knew that it would be a hideous black and blue within the hour, but he could hardly even bring himself to resent it. 

_ What have I done?  _ he thought numbly, recalling the similar feeling he'd had when he'd used chidori on Naruto.  _ What have I done? _

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


When Naruto got home from grocery shopping for Iruka, Sakura was lying face-down on the couch with her shoes still on. That was a bad sign if ever he'd seen one, but he continued on to the kitchen and made tea for Sakura before he put everything away, giving it time to steep. As soon as it was ready, he brought it to the living room and set it down on the coffee table as he sat cross-legged on the ground to be eye level with Sakura. 

"Sakura-chan," he called her gently, running fingers through her hair. "What's the matter?"

Slowly, as though sore, she turned her head to look at him, and Naruto's heart ached to see such tears in her eyes. She had the look of someone who had been sobbing for hours, with swollen cheeks, a red nose and eyelids, and a look of sheer  _ misery  _ that Naruto could empathize with very well.

"Sasuke tried to kill me," she told him, her voice watery with emotion. "Naruto, he tried— he almost did, but I was too fast, I felt it and I just—

I—"

Sakura's words failed her, and Naruto petted her hair with tenderness even as his heart filled with fury. Every now and then, she would offer a sentence or two in explanation, giving him the details of what happened, but Naruto couldn't care less about the whys and the hows.

"I'm going to kill him," Naruto said once she had finished, feeling the kyuubi stirring within him, murmuring wordlessly of carnage and strife. "He's gone too far. I mean, the time with me, that was one thing. I was actively trying to get in the way of his plans, but you… you were just there."

"But Naruto, I  _ saw  _ him," she protested, sitting up further. "For just a moment, for just a fraction of a second, I saw  _ our  _ Sasuke."

Naruto's breath caught in his throat.

_ Their  _ Sasuke. The Sasuke that ran with them in the woods, wild, free, and fierce— the Sasuke that swore to protect them no matter what— the Sasuke that held Naruto so gently after they'd nearly mauled each other with lips and teeth and tongue— the Sasuke that made their little Sakura-chan scream with his mouth—  _ their  _ Sasuke, and theirs alone. Naruto's heart raced at the thought.

"You're sure, Sakura-chan?"

She nodded, and Naruto felt hope burning bright in his chest despite his pain. "It still doesn't excuse what he did."

"It doesn't," Sakura agreed, swiping at her runny nose. "But it gives me hope. Without it, I would drown in this misery, Naruto."

"You're so strong, my Sakura-chan," he chuckled, wiping away a fresh tear. "You would never drown. You would fight the tide itself and  _ win.  _ I believe that."

"Believe it," Sakura muttered tiredly, but she smiled when Naruto echoed it and kissed her forehead. 

"So do you have plans for tonight?" Sakura implored, taking the tea that Naruto offered her. 

"No,"he replied with a grin. "You taking me to dinner?"

Sakura laughed. "Baka, I'm thinking about the kids at the hospital," she told him, brushing a thumb over the lip of the cup she held. "I need to help them, but I can't do it alone, and I need to start tonight."

"Then we'll go," he replied, smiling easily at her. "It's about time I got off my ass and pulled my load anyways."

"It's not within mission parameters." Sakura's expression was serious except for the small smile that pulled at the corners of her mouth. 

Naruto's smile widened into a full-on grin as he shrugged his nonchalance. "That's my specialty. But first, food. Up you get, Sakura-chan— you know I'll burn supper without supervision."

Sakura laughed and pulled him into a kiss. 

"I love you, knucklehead."

"And I love  _ you _ , my Sakura-chan."

  
  


***

  
  


Breaking into the hospital was  _ way  _ easier than it should have been. In fact, with Sakura's badge and the lack of cameras, there wasn't even any breaking involved at all. Unfortunately, it seemed a little  _ too  _ easy, and Sakura wished she had let Naruto bring that stupid M4 with him instead of just his handguns. Of course, if they ran into trouble, his tech would come in more handy than a gun, but Sakura just felt better in the presence of firearms. 

After all, it was as Sasuke said— Sakura-chan was always packing. 

Together, she and Naruto walked down the corridors of the hospital, and after they had gone a ways, she silently signaled for Naruto to stop there and stand guard while she rummaged through supplies and prepared medicines for each case in her file. She might not be able to prevent the pain of these poor, imprisoned children, but she sure as hell could give them something to ease it when everyone else's back was turned. 

Quickly, quietly Sakura worked, her mind spinning in dizzy circles as she put all her materials in meticulous order. The burning need of  _ help them, save them, get the hell out of here,  _ thrummed in her veins, and she was so distracted by that need that she didn't notice what— or who— was lurking in the shadows until a voice filled the air. 

"Let them eat cake, little Marie Antoinette."

Startled, Sakura turned, gun in hand, to find Sasuke leaning against a door frame, sleek and suave for someone who was sporting an awful black eye.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she growled, her fear chased away by a tide of anger that pulled her under.

"You can do little more for these children than she could for her people," Sasuke drawled, arms crossed. "Give it a rest."

"Fuck you," she spat, firing her pistol before she even thought twice. 

Of course, Sasuke side-stepped predictably with inhuman speed, but the shot was enough to send Naruro running and give her the advantage of another person in the fight. 

"Fiesty," Sasuke smirked, but there was something deeper, sadder there in his features. "You sure know the way to a man's heart."

"Through his fucking chest plate," she retorted, but before she could finish her sentence, she felt the breeze of Naruto sprinting at full speed past her as he tackled Sasuke to the ground.

"Bastard!" Naruto snarled, the red energy of the kyuubi tech in him spreading over his body as he pinned Sasuke to the floor. "I should kill you!"

"I didn't come here to pick a fight," Sasuke grunted, pushing Naruro off of him hard enough to slam the kyuubi vessel against the counter across from them. "I was just coming back to look for something for Orochimaru. He left a research file in his office."

As Naruto got to his feet, a tired sort of anger washed over Sakura. Today she had started a new job with a creep of a boss, saw her stupid fucking ex, was almost  _ killed  _ by said ex, and then after she had a breakdown on Kakashi's couch, she had come to do the one thing that  _ might  _ have made her feel better, which she couldn't really do now because of  _ her stupid ex.  _ It was just so unfair. 

Without really caring or thinking, she fired another bullet just for the hell of it.

Sasuke sidestepped again, but this time with his Sharingan tech activated and an irritated look in her direction as glass shattered behind him. 

"Oops," she said, flashing him the best smile she could conjure. "Finger slipped."

"So, what's it going to be?" Naruto growled, his fingernails elongated into claws and eyes glimmering red. "You gonna fight or are you gonna turn tail and run back to your master?"

All three of them knew the answer to that, but Sakura thought mentioning it was a moot point. 

"I can't just let you get away with prowling around here at night," Sasuke replied, summoning a fistful of lightning. "It would be… unseemly."

Sakura watched as a blue ball of energy coalesced in Naruto's hand— a tech she had never seen before, but was instantly aware of its destructive potential as papers around the room went flying from the air pressure imbalance it created.

"Then let's finish what we started three years ago," Naruto replied darkly, kyuubi tails growing behind him. "I've grown stronger since then, and I won't hold back."

It went without saying that Sasuke wouldn't either, and dread curled sickeningly in Sakura's stomach. Yet again, she felt helpless, daunted by the otherworldly powers her boys wielded. They were so strong, so powerful— almost god-like. They were forces of nature and Sakura… she was only human. 

_That doesn't_ _matter,_ a voice in her head that sounded strangely like Tsunade whispered. _A god is nothing without man to acknowledge him._

That thought lodged in the forefront of her mind, Sakura readied her body for action— if she could just be fast enough to come between them, she could put a bullet through Sasuke even if it meant that she would die from his chidori. She didn't want to kill him, she didn't, but if any of them deserved to live, it was Naruto, and Sakura would gladly kill and be killed so that he could survive and finally be happy. 

"Oi!"

All three of them turned to see none other than  _ Iruka  _ of all people, twirling a set of keys around his fingers. 

"These belong to you, Sasuke?" he asked, looking about as innocent as a rattlesnake. 

"Yes," Sasuke growled, stalking forward to retrieve them. Gracefully, Iruka tossed them to him and winked.

"Awesome. Kakashi was pretty sure yours was the Porsche, but he wanted me to make sure he hot-wired the right car," Iruka grinned, and Sasuke cursed as an engine could be heard revving outside. 

"Be seeing you," Iruka chuckled, winking at Sasuke as he ran out the door, evidently more concerned about his Porsche than Sakura, Naruto,  _ and  _ whatever Orochimaru wanted him to fetch. 

Sakura could almost have been offended, but all things considered, even if Sakura, Naruto and Iruka's organs were sold on the black market along with their tech, they still probably wouldn't add up to the cost of a new Porsche. 

Seemingly unaffected by the sudden change, Iruka crossed his arms and grinned.

"You guys are in  _ so  _ much trouble when we get home."

Sakura swallowed thickly. "Iruka-sensei, I was just trying to— "

"Hey, how did you know what we were doing?" Naruto demanded, eyes narrowed. 

"You know, there are other people in the house besides you and Sakura," Iruka laughed, clapping Naruto on the shoulder. "Kakashi and I heard everything."

Sakura scowled. If they knew, they could have just tagged along to start with. "This is why I have my own apartment."

"Wait, you have your own apartment? Why doesn't anyone ever tell me anything?" Naruto grumbled, crossing his arms like a petulant child. 

"We can play catch-up later," Iruka interjected, making his way to the medicines and injections Sakura had prepared. "I believe we have some meddling to do before the night is over, and I don't want to be here when Sasuke gets back from whatever Kakashi has in store."

Sakura nodded her agreement. These children, the ones who had no one and nothing but pain and suffering… they were the priority right now, not old business that was buried in the past. She set to work, barking orders like she did in Konoha City Hospital, giving Naruto and Iruka what jobs they could handle and taking for herself what required the delicate hand of a medic. 

From room to room, she administered painkillers, medicines to ease the side-effects of the experimentation, and in some cases, preemptive measures against the negative effects of future side-effects. Sakura could not have said how long she worked— it could have been minutes, it could have been hours— but when she was finished, she felt as though the weight of ten-thousand earths had been lifted from her shoulders.

"Let's go home," Iruka told her after they'd put everything back where it belonged. "I'm sure Kakashi is finished with his fun by now, and is waiting for us back at the estate."

"Yay," Sakura replied weakly, with a half-hearted laugh, but Naruto slung an arm around her and kissed her cheek. 

"Come on, Sakura-chan, let's go get our ears chewed, and then we can go to your apartment and lick our wounds," he laughed, and Sakura knew from experience that his smile with infectious. "And if you'd like, I can lick  _ your— _ "

"Naruto!" Iruka exclaimed.

"Sorry, sorry," the blond chuckled. 

He wasn't sorry at all, but Sakura figured that was alright as long as he was good on his word. After all, she'd had a stressful day, and there was no stress relief quite like fucking so hard she blacked out. 

  
  
  


***

  
  


Two cars. 

Two  _ fucking  _ cars, ruined, all because of Sakura. 

The first one had been a Ferrari— bright red, Sasuke's favorite. It was no secret that Sakura had been upset about the breakup, but Sasuke certainly hadn't thought that she would stoop so low as to key his car. Of course, it was probably Ino's idea, seeing as how it was something a fucking teenager would have done, but there was  _ no doubt  _ in his mind that Sakura had been the one behind the cock carved into the hood… and the insults on the doors… and the cracked windshield.

And now this one, his baby— driven into a pond after Sasuke had chased Kakashi halfway across the city and back— all because Sakura and Naruto had their noses where they  _ fucking shouldn't.  _ It was infuriating. 

And furthermore… how was he supposed to explain the bullet holes in the glass doors of the hospital to Orochimaru? 

Not to mention that Naruto… holy shit,  _ Naruto. _

To feel the weight of him, that power, that tenacity— it was overwhelming. When he had pinned Sasuke to the floor, Sasuke had been thrown violently into the past, where Naruto would have been pressing biting kisses to his neck and chest, not exuding the intent to kill so strong that it could have melted the skin right off his face. For just a moment, a mere blink of an eye, he had wanted that— wanted Naruto to kiss him, to fist a hand in his hair and bite his lip. Just a moment of careless thought, and now that want permeated his every thought, with no chance of being forgotten anytime soon

"Fuck," he cursed bitterly, staring out across the pond that had swallowed his car.

Sasuke supposed there was little he could do now, about any of it. Of course, he still had a decision to make— to tell, or not to tell. It would be easy just to tell Orochimaru everything and let him take care of it, but… Sakura, with her smile, her wry humor, her beautiful mind… that would be the price. Despite the fact that Sasuke should find it easy to rid himself of the pesky pinkette, be wasn't sure if that was what he wanted. 

_ You love her,  _ a small voice in the back of his mind whispered.  _ You love them both.  _

He adamantly refused to acknowledge that the voice had even spoken. He could not afford such a luxury, not until Uchiha Itachi was cold in his grave. 

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about slow updates all-- I'm sick rn and college is hell


	5. Bonding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I refuse to lie to you. This chapter is very Naruto-esque filler, but I felt that it was SO IMPORTANT to write in the nigh-familial bonds between all the lovelies from Konoha and draw out Sasuke's inner turmoil a little. I had a lot of fun with this chapter, so be prepared for some angst later to make up for all this happy
> 
> I'm really sorry that this isnt exactly the best, most flow-y chapter I've ever written, but honestly I love it and I hope you will too
> 
> (I also forgot to mention that Sakura has her doctorate, so here we are)

The next day at work, Sakura was prepared for the worst. Chances were, her cover had been blown all to hell, but she wasn't one to sit around and wait for a hitman to come to her, and she sure as hell wasn't going down without a fight either. She had more guns and knives on her than any sane person would carry, as well as Naruto, Kakashi, and Iruka on standby outside the hospital— if shit went sideways, she was ready to shoot until she ran out of bullets, stab until she broke all her knives, and punch until her arms didn't work. 

Even so, Sakura walked the hospital floor as though it were made of eggshells— she braced herself before entering every room. Every so often, she would be  _ convinced  _ that Orochimaru was going to jump out of the shadows and rip her throat out, but he never did. It was like nothing had happened— the day went without a cinch.

After lunch, Naruto, Kakashi, and Iruka went home, figuring there was no threat to Sakura's wellbeing… for now. It was a completely rational assumption to make, but if that was truly the case, it could only be for one of two reasons. Either Orochimaru was waiting for an opportune moment… or Sasuke hadn't told him. 

Sakura really doubted the former, since Orochimaru was fiercely protective of his research, but the latter was unthinkable. 

Wasn't it?

After all, Sasuke  _ had  _ tried to kill her. And Naruto. And dumped them. And worked for the biggest bastard within three hundred miles. It was almost impossible that he hadn't ratted on her. 

With a sigh, Sakura turned her thoughts from the whole ordeal and focused on her pill counting and slipping a microscopic camera inside one bottle that would sit in clear view of one of the rooms. After all, as long as no one was actively trying to kill her, she was good, and besides, if she continued to be so paranoid, she may just end up with Tsunade's terrible habit of day drinking.

_ All I have to do is make it to five,  _ she told herself, glancing at the clock.  _ It shouldn't be that hard. It's twelve now, so that's only like ten sets of thirty minutes until I get to leave.  _

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


It was about an hour before Sakura was supposed to be home from the hospital when the guys started arriving at the Hatake estate to pick up their long-standing tradition of Poker Thursday— or, as Naruto liked to call it, an excuse to drink beer and gossip.

Kiba and Shikamaru were actually early for once, and, since they were Naruto's best friends in the world, he naturally spilled his guts about everything— from Jiraiya's death, to not having the guts to so much as  _ think about _ that journal, to his Sasuke problems. When it was all out in the open, he leaned back, feeling that about twenty pounds of emotional weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

"Damn," said Kiba, throwing his feet up on Kakashi's expensive coffee table. "That's rough buddy."

"You sure can pick 'em," Shikamaru laughed, bringing in their tea. "Sakura has the temper and strength of Temari, and Sasuke is pretty much the homicidal maniac Gaara used to be. I only married  _ one  _ of those problems, and homicidal mania isn't my turn-on."

"And getting spanked and pegged by our dear Temari-chan is?" Kiba teased, ribbing their friend as he sat on the couch. 

"Oh don't act like you haven't let Hinata peg you," Shikamaru grumbled, crossing his arms. 

"So you  _ admit  _ to being pegged?"

"You guys are crazy," Naruto chuckled. "I would never let Sakura anywhere  _ near  _ my ass with a dildo of any size. She terrifies me. Just try to imagine it."

Kiba and Shikamaru blanched, and Kiba must have thought it prudent to change the subject from a crazed, demonic, dildo-weilding Sakura, because he changed topics rather swiftly. 

"Okay but are you coming out to that club in Suna with us tomorrow?" Kiba asked, elbowing Shikamaru. "I know somebody that could get us in for free."

With a roll of his eyes, Shikamaru added, "The whole gang is gonna be there. Gaara too. He was ecstatic when he heard you were here— I think he even smiled."

"Was it scary?" Kiba teased.

"Oh yeah."

A warm feeling spread over Naruto as he recalled his hard-won friendship with Gaara, Head of the Family in Suna. "Gaara. I missed him. Is he still with bushy brow?"

"Yeah, they're… a little weird, but so in love that I think I've got a cavity from it," Shikamaru replied. "I wish Temari had half of that sweetness. Troublesome woman."

Kiba snorted. No matter how Shikamaru fussed, nobody felt sorry for him because they  _ all  _ knew how Temari was before she and Shikamaru had even gotten together— and Shikamru could say what he liked, but he secretly loved it. "Do you think Lee would share some of his eyebrows so Gaara could have some?"

"Kiba, you're such an asshole," Naruto laughed. "Where's Akamaru? I like him better."

"I'm letting Hinata groom him since the last person I paid to do it  _ shaved him completely _ ."

Naruto shook his head. "Damn." 

He wouldn't have wanted to be that particular groom. If there was one thing to fear from Inuzuka Kiba, it was his wrath over a misstep with that dog. 

"So, are you coming tomorrow or not?" Shikamaru asked, pulling out his phone. "If you are, I'll go ahead and tell my hellish wife to plan on two extra people."

Naruto grinned. He absolutely  _ loved  _ the fact that the general assumption was always that Sakura would accompany him, whether to the club or out to dinner or to any and everywhere. It was just a way to reaffirm their relationship— it happened, is still happening, and likely will happen for the rest of forever. 

"Yeah, if Sakura feels up to it," he replied, and Shikamaru busied himself texting Temari while Kiba grinned.

"When has Sakura ever  _ not  _ been up for clubbing?" the Inuzuka quipped, sipping his tea.

"The time Sai and Ino decided they wanted to have sex with us, so we decided to stay home and have a bang instead of going clubbing," Naruto replied, immensely satisfied by the spray of tea that left Kiba's mouth. 

Shikamaru groaned as a splash of tea hit his phone. "Damn it, Kiba, that's disgusting."

Kiba, however, was too traumatized by the bomb Naruto just dropped on them to care. "The time that  _ what? _ "

"Oh yeah," Naruto grinned darkly. "We were all kind of in a weird funk, you know, right after Sasuke left, and Sai was trying to figure out life and Ino just likes sex, so we all just decided to have a fuck fest."

Just as Naruto finished his sentence, the screen door of the house slammed shut behind none other than Hyūga Neji. 

"I would ask," the Hyūga began slowly, as though pondering each word, "but I'm not sure that I want to know."

"So apparently Ino's fantasy foursome happened and  _ no one  _ got it on film," Kiba filled him in, making room on the couch. "Which, you know, is a damn shame because do you honestly know how much  _ blackmail  _ that would be? I wouldn't have to worry about all those pictures she has of me from freshman year ever again."

Everyone in the room shuddered but Neji, who was blissfully ignorant of Kiba's… _proclivities_ his freshman year. Naruto remembered all too well the wolf-tails attached to Kiba's belts and all the other weird furry shit he used to do— it went without saying that Shikamaru remembered too. How could anyone forget? Even so, in a rare moment of true best-bros-forever solidarity, Naruto and Shikamaru kept their mouths firmly shut in front of Kiba's potential cousin-by-marriage. What Neji didn't know wouldn't hurt him, but Neji _finding out_ could definitely hurt Kiba if he wanted to marry into the prestigious Hyūga clan— even an Inuzuka couldn't do that without proving themselves to be The Best at pretty much everything.

(And at the moment, Kiba was only The Best at belching the alphabet backwards, so bringing up dumb shit he did when he was fifteen wasn't exactly ideal.)

"I see," Neji replied, taking his seat beside Kiba. "Well, are we actually going to play poker on this fine evening, or are you guys going to skip straight to the beer like usual?"

"We're waiting for Choji," Shikamaru replied, scrolling his phone. "He gets off work soon."

Naruto hated to break it to Neji, but they were  _ never  _ actually going to play poker on poker Thursday. 

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Face-down on Ino's bed, Sakura groaned.

"I take it you didn't want to be there for poker Thursday?" Ino hummed, flipping through the newest Cosmo. 

Sakura's muffled grunt of assent sounded pitiful even to her own ears. 

"I'm just tired," she admitted after a while, sitting up. "Naruto deserves to have a good time, and I'm just not feeling it."

"Hmph. Well, he shouldn't have left you here to kill yourself at the hospital while he fucked off for three years if he wanted you to be chipper," Ino replied, looking bored with her magazine as she chewed on the strings of one of Sai's hoodies. "I don't see why you don't carry around a rolled newspaper to whack him with."

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Doesn't do any good. It's wasted energy, you know. And I'm sure you've already heard, but— "

"Sasuke-kun is still an asshole?" Ino finished, snapping Cosmo closed. 

Sakura nodded, forever grateful for Ino's insight— even if it did get Sakura into trouble that one time. 

_ 'Say, have you ever keyed a Ferrari before?'  _ the blonde had asked her all those years ago. 

Ah, good times. 

Ino scooted closer and wrapped an arm around Sakura's shoulders, a comforting gesture that they exchanged often. The two of them were much the same, and they worked well together in life. When one was down, the other always managed to pull her comrade to her feet and put some fighting spirit back into her. 

"I don't care if he never comes around," Ino told her, resting their heads against each other. "But he can't tell you that he never loved you. I know love when I see it, and he loved you and Naruto more than any other living thing. He's just blinded by his own ambition right now. It doesn't excuse him, but it does matter."

"He tried to kill me," Sakura frowned, looking down at the busty woman on the front of the Cosmo magazine. "He almost did."

Ino shrugged. "Doesn't mean much when all of us have killed at least one person. I guess the line gets blurred after so long." 

"I just don't know," Sakura sighed. "Maybe… I think maybe I just miss him. And… you know, I never thought that Sasuke loved me as much as he did Naruto, and maybe that's part of why he left and is staying gone."

Pulling away from their embrace, Ino studied Sakura with a look that could have cut her open like a scalpel would. Turquoise eyes met emerald ones, and Sakura felt scalded. 

"What would Tsunade-sama say to that?" Ino asked, her voice harsh and biting. "For all that billboard brow, you sure don't seem to have a brain. Sakura, he nearly  _ killed  _ a man for you when we were kids. I know because  _ I was there. _ It was terrifying, and I was so  _ jealous _ , but he did that for you because he loves you."

"But— " Sakura interjected, but Ino slapped a hand over her mouth.

"And with Sasuke, it isn't about looks— if it was, I would be the one who's about to cry," Ino smirked, and Sakura fought the urge to bite her hand. "It's about  _ you.  _ He loved your brain, your talents, he loved  _ you.  _ God only knows why, but he picked the two biggest idiots in Konoha to fall head over heels for—  _ two  _ biggest, because one idiot wasn't enough for him. You  _ matter  _ or he would have just efficiently left you in the dust."

_ Well, he did that anyways _ , Sakura thought wryly, but wisely let Ino finish. 

"What I'm trying to say, Sakura, is that his love is big enough for both you and Naruto— but most importantly, you should know that even if that wasn't the case, you are a strong, beautiful woman, capable of surpassing Tsunade herself. You've had fantasies all your life about being an Uzumaki-Uchiha housewife, but I think you belong to a  _ much  _ bigger, more prominent Family than that."

Those words were heavy, but achingly sincere. After letting them sink in, Sakura gave Ino her best award-winning smile, and voiced what both of them were thinking. 

"Do you have any wine?"

Ino smirked. "I thought you'd never ask."

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


So, Sasuke didn't tell Orochimaru what had transpired the night before. 

It was probably the worst decision he'd made in a while _. _ Not that Sasuke was known for his bad decisions— quite the opposite, in fact— but he couldn't get the image of Sakura's terrified expression out of his head. 

_ 'No offense,'  _ she had asked him so cynically.  _ 'But why do you care?' _

Why did he care, indeed.

"You gonna mope all day or are you gonna come play xbox with me?" Suigetsu asked, not even bothering to glance over his shoulder as he addressed Sasuke. 

"I do not  _ mope, _ " he replied, enunciating every single syllable of every word a bit too much to sound anything but malicious. 

"Okay, you're gonna mope, got it. Jugo, come play xbox with me!" 

Sasuke fucking  _ hated  _ having roommates sometimes.

"I'm meditating!" came Jugo's muffled reply. 

Suigetsu swore. "When does Karin get home?"

"She won't play with you," Sasuke told him, even though he knew full well it was unnecessary— for all the fucking they did when they thought no one was home, Karin  _ hated  _ Suigetsu. It was comical, in a way— she only hated Suigetsu mostly because she wanted into Sasuke's pants so bad she couldn't think about anything else, and Sasuke frequently slipped Suigetsu cash under the table to cockblock them and be, in general, a nuisance. 

"Yeah but the next time we fuck will be  _ so much better  _ because I pissed her off." Suigetsu cracked a grin. "And, in any case, on the off-chance that she actually agrees, the angry sex when I beat her is going to be  _ hella  _ great."

Sasuke wanted to fling himself out the nearest window, and it must have showed because as soon as Jugo came out from his room and saw Sasuke, he motioned with his hand for the Uchiha to follow him to the other end of the house. 

"Sasuke, when I say this, know that it is out of love," Jugo said as he sat gracefully into the lotus position on his yoga mat, looking up at Sasuke with sincerity in his eyes. He really was too flowy and graceful for a man his size— it was unnatural. 

"Uh, okay." Was there really any other response to that?

"Your vibes are absolute  _ shit  _ right now."

Sasuke could almost have laughed. 

"Are they?" he asked, quirking a brow. 

"Yes. I can't focus on my meditation when you're over there festering like a bad case of gangrene," Jugo replied matter-of-factly. "You need to release. What can I do to facilitate a move toward inner peace for you?"

_ Shoot me,  _ Sasuke thought wryly, but decided that a shrug would do just nicely for a reply. 

Jugo folded his arms. "I think you're bothered about something— well, many things— but whatever this is in particular is causing you more grief than usual, and it would be prudent to get it off your chest before it affects you more than it already has."

Sasuke's answer was swift and serrated. 

"No."

Talking wasn't an option— not even to Jugo. What would Sasuke say? "Hey, I was in a polyamorous relationship before this and I am struggling to come to terms with the fact that I wanna fuck the enemy!" and "Have you actually  _ seen  _ Sakura's ass though? What about Naruto's perfect cock and endless stamina? Do you know what it's like to have two lovers who are equally fantastic at oral  _ and _ to have literally photographically recorded yourself fucking their faces in your head for the rest of forever? Do you?" seemed a little off-color for some reason.

"Quit fooling yourself, we all know something's up. You let that pink-haired girl threaten Karin to the point where she cried all night about being weak," Jugo retorted. " _ And  _ you let the kyuubi vessel sass you without cutting out his tongue. Yesterday, you came home with the most horrendous black eye I have ever seen, which means you almost certainly let someone take a swing at you. Clearly there's something there, and it's driving you crazy."

"We used to have sex," Sasuke replied brusquely, leaning his hip against the side of Jugo's bureau. "That's all."

Jugo's eyebrows raised, his curiosity piqued. "Really? With both of them?"

Sasuke nodded.

"You must have been very close to them. You haven't so much as batted an eye at anyone since I've known you."

Sasuke scoffed. "I've had other partners."

_ Maybe one or two partners that I threw out on their ass afterwards,  _ Sasuke thought to himself,  _ but partners nonetheless. _

"What were they like?"

"My other partners?"

"Your former lovers, Sasuke." The exasperation in Jugo's tone was softened by his gentle smile— again, he truly was too graceful for his form. 

_Sexy, brilliant, sweeter than nectar—_ all this and more was on his tongue, but Sasuke chose the words that would sound the most honest. "Loud, annoying, weaker than myself in many ways."

Jugo hummed in thought. "I meant more specifically. Start with the kyuubi vessel. Who is he?"

"An idiot," Sasuke replied, but his mind supplied the image of Naruto leaning over him, sweaty and breathless from fucking, and he had that  _ smile,  _ the one that could scorch the coldest of hearts— even, at times, Sasuke's _.  _ "He's loud, and he's incredibly annoying. He's ridiculously stubborn and foolish, and he drinks and talks too much and eats too many sweets for breakfast. He likes to argue and his stamina is unbelievably high, just as his tolerance for bullshit is low. He's some strange mix between the Energizer Bunny, Captain Kangaroo, and Tigger from Winnie the Pooh."

Jugo nodded as though he knew and understood exactly what Sasuke was trying to convey, even though Sasuke knew that he couldn't possibly know the  _ half  _ of it. "I see. And what about the girl?" 

Sasuke sighed. Sakura— of course. Perfect, pretty Sakura with her glowing eyes, swaying hips, and subtle glances filled with  _ want  _ that could pull Sasuke from damn near anything to be at her side. 

"She's willful, obstinate, and impossible. She's tenacious even when she's being foolish, and she's got a temper like you wouldn't believe. Even so, Sakura is a prime target for a predator— she's easily provoked and doesn't… well, didn't… possess the physical prowess to overpower someone who was looking for a fight. Her skill lies mostly in finesse."

"So she's different now?"

"In a way," Sasuke mused, placing a hand on his chin. "The ability to punch completely through a tree is a deterrent to predators of any kind."

Jugo threw his head back and laughed. "It certainly sounds like you have an interesting past. But I do have something to ask of you, Sasuke-kun."

"What's that?"

"Did you abandon them because they are truly too weak to serve your purposes, or because you knew they wouldn't support you in your quest for revenge?"

Jugo's eyes were devoid of any judgement— it seemed that he truly was only curious. 

It pissed Sasuke off. 

If Jugo had something to say, he should have just come out and said it instead of playing these stupid fucking games that Sasuke was beginning to realize were just to make him talk about shit he didn't want to talk about. 

"It's not your place to question me," he snapped, furious. "It doesn't matter why I left them, but if you  _ must  _ know, they  _ are _ too weak and ill-suited to my purposes. They can't be any stronger than they are because they lack the hatred necessary to become so."

_ "You are weak,"  _ Itachi told him long ago.  _ "Do you know why you are weak? Because you lack hatred."  _

For all that his brother deserved the death that Sasuke was going to give him, Itachi was certainly right about that. 

"Do you really believe that?" Jugo pressed, his voice soft and tender. "Do you believe that Karin is strong because she hates? What about Suigetsu? What hatred drives him?"

"It makes no difference," Sasuke scowled. "They are all weaker than me—  _ you _ are weaker than me— and that is the only proof I need."

With that, Sasuke walked away, rage burning in his chest. As he slammed and locked the door to his bedroom, he wondered despite himself how right Jugo really was. 

  
  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Tsunade looked down at her phone and could not  _ believe  _ what she was seeing. 

First, she opened an attachment sent from Ino's phone to find a video of a very drunk Sakura literally sobbing over a game of Operation with a wine bottle sitting on the floor beside her. Every time she would touch tweezers to metal so that the toy buzzed, she cried even harder, telling Ino to "tell Tsunade I'm sorry" and that "I don't deserve my doctorate, take it from me." It was so funny Tsunade thought she would split her sides open laughing. 

Next, after she had finished watching and re-watching her beloved Sakura-chan, Tsunade opened a message from Kakashi, which just so happened to be a picture of The Boys (there really was no other term for them) at Poker Thursday— each of them were sitting on Kakashi's couch, posed almost perfectly with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, faces hidden by what were unmistakably porn magazines, and a beer nestled between their legs. In order, Tsunade recognized Choji, Naruto, Kiba, and Shikamaru— and of course, poor, innocent Neji, who was showing his face in the picture because he was looking awfully horrified at whatever was on the inside of the magazine. The caption Kakashi sent with it read, "Jiraiya would be so proud."

_ Yes, he would be,  _ Tsunade thought, her sweet memories tinged with the bitterness of her loss— nonetheless, she smiled widely at the incredibly bright future of Konoha, knowing that she and her generation had done well to preserve the humor, light, and joy in the upcoming leaders of the Family. 

Finally, the last message Tsunde received was from Kurenai, who forwarded her a picture that was initially from Hinata, featuring Shino— who was holding a very giggly-looking Mirai and pretending to bottle feed her a two-liter Sprite— with Akamaru barking in the background. Accompanying the picture, Kurenai sent, "can u please make sure they dont kill my baby while im drunk off my ass at kiba's mom's?"

Tsunade made sure to reassure Kurenai that no one was going to kill her child, and she saved the pictures and video to her phone, making a mental note to have the pictures printed and put on a shelf or in a scrapbook somewhere. This was what she lived for— seeing the bonds between her precious people grow and strengthen, and watching them live and live  _ happily. _ It gave her strength to do what was necessary, and it reminded her that life goes on even after tragedy. 

_ Be happy, my loves,  _ she thought as she closed her phone and opened her bottle of sake.  _ There is precious little time to be as young as you are. _

  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case you were wondering, the inspiration for the sprite thing was because my cousin did the same thing to my mom when I was a baby and she was left to babysit me :))


	6. Forget to Forget You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for such a late update, my life has been absolutely nuts. 40 hrs a week plus full time college is a killer. However, this chapter has ALL THE FEELS so I hope that makes up for my lack of punctuality. 
> 
> Also, warning for gross stuff in surgery and Sakura's breakdown afterward. It's nothing detailed at all but I wanted to give you guys a heads up just in case. If you're worried, just skip Sasuke's POV

Sakura's alarm clock rang incessantly from across the room, where she had placed it to avoid pounding it with her fist in a fit of annoyance. Naruto could relate to that sentiment— snuggled up with her in her nice, warm bed, he'd rather Rasengan his own foot than move an inch. Every line of their bodies was pressed against each other, and there were very few things that could persuade Naruto to let her get up and abandon him to go work for that bastard Orochimaru. 

"Mph, Sakura-chan, turn off your alarm," he grumbled, even as he snuggled closer to her. "Play hooky with me."

"I can't," she groaned, but made no move to get up. 

After about five more minutes of hellish beeping, Sakura extracted herself from Naruto, stumbled to the kitchen, and made herself a cup of coffee. While she was waking up and fumbling around throughout the apartment, Naruto thought hard about his dreams from the night before.

Jiraiya's journal had been the focus of his sleep. For all its beautiful leather cover and gold inscriptions, it was an ugly monster to deal with. Every night for the last week, it had haunted Naruto's dreams, even chasing him around the Hatake mansion one night. He shouldn't have been surprised, since the damn thing consumed his thoughts throughout the day as well, but Naruto knew he wouldn't get any peace until he read it. 

Problem was, he was  _ terrified  _ of what he might find. 

It could have something about Akatsuki. About Jiraiya's past adventures. About his love for Tsunade and Orochimaru, about Orochimaru as a young man, about… about Naruto's parents. All of those things loomed over Naruto's head like some sort of anvil, holding on by a thread that could snap at any moment. It was horrific and scary and downright awful, and it was something that he wished he could shove into a corner and promptly ignore for the rest of his life. 

But he couldn't. 

And really, if there was one thing scary enough to mash his fears (and whatever else might be lurking in that journal) to a (physical and metaphorical) pulp… 

"Sakura-chaaaaaan," Naruto groaned from her bedroom, aiming to sound pitiful enough that she wouldn't clobber him despite the fact that she likely hadn't had so much as a sip of her coffee yet. "C'mere."

"What do you want?" she grumbled in response, poking her head in the door. "Make it quick, I have to get a shower before my shift."

"Will you read the journal with me when you get home?"

All at once, Sakura's grumpy morning face melted into a look of soft concern, and she moved forward to sit on the edge of the bed. As he did most days, Naruto realized that loved her more and more each moment they lived, and even though she had bedhead from hell and crust in her eyes, she was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. 

"Are you sure, Naruto? We were supposed to go to that club in Suna."

He nodded blearily. "I'm sure," he replied, and Sakura ran her fingers through his hair. 

"Then of course I will. I'll text Temari and let her know we aren't coming," she told him, pressing a kiss to his forehead. "I love you."

"Love you too, Sakura," he mumbled into his pillow, already beginning to drift back to sleep. 

He was awake just long enough to hear Sakura fondly call him "baka" and pull the blanket back over to cover him properly before he began to snore lightly, dead to the world for a few hours more.

  
  
  


***

  
  
  
  


It was a nasty day— storm clouds gathered in the sky, dark and angry as they rolled over the city— and Sasuke thought it fit his mood quite nicely. Orochimaru had not only cancelled their training, but he then had the  _ audacity  _ to ask Sasuke to pick up lunch for two and deliver it to him at the hospital, like Sasuke was some sort of servant boy. It was  _ revolting _ .

Sasuke was the last Uchiha, aside from his traitorous brother. He was well-bred, the heir to a fortune and bionic eyes that were more powerful than any other tech in the word. He was no one's  _ servant _ , no one's  _ lackey _ — not even one so powerful and influential as Orochimaru.

And yet, before he knew it, Sasuke found himself walking through the hospital corridors with a handful of Chinese takeout, albeit with a scowl on his face. 

_ Presumptuous, arrogant, good-for-nothing pile of shit _ , Sasuke thought as he stormed through the hospital, tasting ozone when little bit of his chidori tech sprouted tiny bolts of lightning in response to his irritation.  _ I should gut him right in his office and ruin all of his fucking paperwork. _

In truth, a little red might have brightened the drab walls of Orochimaru's office— or Sasuke thought so, at least. It was likely that he would have found out for certain if Orochimaru had actually been present in his office, but the work-space was curiously empty when Sasuke arrived. After a moment of waiting, wondering if he should leave a note, he decided to set the food on Orochimaru's desk, uncaring as to what important papers it was probably sitting on, and make his exit before he really did kill someone, or worse, actually have to  _ interact  _ with another person. 

Unfortunately, luck wasn't on his side, because as Sasuke turned to leave, a nurse poked her head into the office and flushed slightly when she saw who was standing there. 

"Oh, uh, hi Sasuke-kun," she greeted him, with no small amount of lash-batting. "If you're looking for Orochimaru-sama, he's in the operating room with Sakura-chan. Would you like to watch the surgery?" 

Truthfully? No. Sasuke could care less about any experiment Orochimaru was up to. However, the thought of seeing Sakura at work in her element was… intriguing. In fact, it was intriguing enough that he agreed to let the nurse lead him by the arm to a room where they could look through a large piece of glass to see what through to the operating room without needing to be sterilized and in the way. 

Admittedly, Sasuke felt sick almost immediately once he realized what was happening.

It wasn't like he had a weak stomach. In fact, he'd witnessed many horrible, gut-wrenching, heart-breaking things— the dead bodies of his parents, and his brother with their blood on his hands— all without the slightest sickness. Sasuke himself had killed men before and watched them choke on their own blood with his hand through their chest… and yet he felt woefully unprepared for what was happening before his eyes.

The child on the operating table was no older than seven— a young boy who looked almost angelic in his drug-induced sleep. Or, he would have if Sakura wasn't digging around in his innards quite so fiercely. After all, it was hard to mix anything heavenly with the grotesque, even for someone as cold-blooded as Sasuke— who, even with his limited medical knowledge, could tell that the operation was difficult as he watched Sakura bark orders at the people around her. 

"Sakura-chan is a splendid surgeon," the nurse who had guided Sasuke gushed as she watched the surgery intently. "Would you like for me to explain the procedure to you?"

"No," he replied curtly, fighting the urge to squeeze his eyes tightly shut and turn away.

"O-oh. Alright then."

But it wasn't alright, because at that very moment, something began to go very, very wrong. The patient started thrashing on the table, and Sakura was screaming orders, unable to move her hands until another took her place. Frantically, she worked, but then the boy lay frightfully still, and Sasuke knew what had happened. 

_ Dead,  _ he thought, but Sakura wasn't done yet. 

Using a defibrillator in tandem with her Byakugou, a black seal wrapping in a criss-cross pattern across her body, she tried and tried to revive him— Sasuke could see her mouth the word "Clear!" over and over again until someone forcibly pulled her away, despite her screaming and her tears. Sasuke felt a part of himself rip deep within his chest as Sakura turned and struck the nurse that had held her back, and even though he couldn't hear the words she was sobbing, they scalded him nonetheless. 

_ My Sakura-chan _ , he thought miserably as she threw open the exit to the operating room and ran out. Sasuke only wanted one thing in that instant— he wanted to hold her, to help her, to soothe the burning ache of grief and despair that was written so clearly across her face. Before he was ready, before he could do anything, she stormed through the room he was in, leaving in her wake the dreadful weight of helplessness in his bones, and he could do nothing but follow her, her name on his lips like a prayer. 

"Sakura," he called her gently, but she never stopped. "Please, Sakura!"

She ran, and ran, and did not stop— but as she ran, so did Sasuke, and he knew that he  _ would  _ not stop until he'd caught up with her. 

Until he'd cared for her. 

Until she was okay. 

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


As Sakura emptied the contents of her stomach into a toilet in the ladies' bathroom, she felt strong, calloused hands holding her hair away from her mouth and rubbing small, soothing circles on her back. She didn't have to wonder who those hands belonged to— there was little guesswork after the way he'd called her name and ran after her. She should have been stronger, should have pushed him away from her as hard as she could, but instead, she found herself aching for the warmth of his touch that she felt as his knees bracketed her own.

If she leaned back, she knew that she would rest against the long, lean line of his torso, and she wasn't sure if that would be better or worse than throwing up. 

After a few dry heaves, however, she wasn't left with much of a choice. All the strength in her body had been drained, and just before she could fall face-first into the toilet (ick), Sasuke pulled her backwards against him, flushing the toilet before gathering paper with which to wipe her mouth.

Stricken by his sweetness, his tender touches, Sakura began once more to cry, if she had ever stopped. 

Strong arms circled her as she wept, and the smell of his cologne filled her with comfort as he rocked her gently back and forth. For a moment or two, he said nothing, but then as her tears continued, he spoke at last, in a way that he must have been sure Sakura would understand. 

_ "Let us go then, you and I, when the evening is spread out against the sky, like a patient etherized on a table… " _ he began, the deep baritone of his voice soothing her. She recognized the lines of her favorite poem instantly— she used to skip around the Hatake mansion reciting it, laughing and giggling at the silly, sing-song sounds it seemed to make. Sasuke had memorized it with the Sharingan for her years ago, for her birthday. To hear it now was… strange, but soothing even as her heart was ripping itself apart as she replayed the disastrous operation over and over inside her mind. In a detached, clinical sort of way, she knew that he was grounding her, providing an anchor to reality in the midst of her storm, but she couldn't stop to really think about it without spiraling farther downwards in her distress.

The boy that had been chosen for the surgery— Mika-kun, Sakura named him, as Orochimaru had only given the patients numbers— had been free-spirited and full of life. He was such a sweetheart, a charmer, folding origami flowers out of napkins to give to Sakura when she made her rounds. He was everything good and kind and gentle in the world, and Sakura had quickly learned to love him.

_ "…time for you and time for me, and time yet for a hundred indecisions, and for a hundred visions and revisions, before the taking of a toast and tea… " _

Mika was one of the first that she'd given a morphine drip the night before, hoping to ease his pain. She had never meant for this to happen, never, and yet somehow it felt like her fault that he died. Had the prolonged exposure to opiates had an adverse effect on him during the surgery? Had there perhaps been mixing of medicines that shouldn't be mixed because the anesthesiologists were unaware of Sakura's late-night endeavors?

Sasuke's voice floated above it all, and Sakura shivered as his breath tickled her ear. 

_ "Do I dare disturb the universe? In a minute there is time for decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse." _

Even though Sakura knew it was only a recitation, it felt almost like Sasuke was speaking to her through someone else's words. Did either of them dare to disturb the universe? Should they reach out and change something, anything, or would it just make everything worse the more they meddled? 

_ "For I have known them all already, known them all— have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons. I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall, beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume?" _

How should he presume indeed— how should he presume to hold her, to pet her hair so gently, to calm her and wipe away her tears, the way a lover would?

On and on he spoke, reciting line after line, and with each word, Sakura's pitiful sobs became less and less. It helped, having something to focus on besides her anguish, and her breathing evened out as he approached the last stanza. Gingerly, she turned to look at him before the spell of their moment was broken— she drank in the sight of him as though she would never get another chance to do so, and he seemed to be doing the same.

_ "I have seen them riding seaward on the waves,"  _ he recited, his crimson Sharingan spinning and swirling as it captured the image of her no doubt wrecked appearance. " _ Combing the white hair of the waves blown back, when the wind blows the water white and black.We have lingered in the chambers of the sea, by sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown, till human voices wake us, and we drown." _

For a few moments, they were silent. Sasuke's hands rested on her shoulders, and he was studying her so intently that she felt pinned, unable to move so much as an inch. The emotion in his eyes was a tumultuous mix of concern, anger, and… and dare she think it?  _ Desire.  _ Had she felt stronger, more capable, and perhaps a little less like she'd just puked, she might have kissed him. 

But as it was, she felt boneless and weary, and the moment was lost as soon as Sasuke opened his mouth. 

"What was Tsunade thinking?" he wondered aloud, cupping one of Sakura's cheek as his gaze turned steely. "Doesn't she know that you aren't cut out for this, that this would break your heart? Or does she know and not care?"

Sakura saw red.

Before she knew it, she had knocked Sasuke down on the bathroom floor, his head hitting the tile with a painful thud, and her fist was buried in the ground only inches from his face as her chest heaved with rage. 

"You know  _ nothing  _ about Tsunade," she snarled, certain she must have seemed half-mad in her grief, anger, and despair. "She  _ cried  _ the day she asked me to take on this mission. She loves me like her own daughter, and she would  _ never  _ have given me such a dangerous assignment if it weren't for the fact that Orochimaru— the man she once  _ loved _ — is fucking killing people! Killing children! It's unacceptable, and I am ashamed that I have  _ ever  _ loved you if you think that that's all fine."

Beneath her, Sasuke's eyes were wide with shock, but that didn't stop his hands from resting naturally on the tops of her thighs as she straddled him. He was unmistakably hard beneath her, no doubt from adrenaline, but it only served to make Sakura angrier than she already was. 

"Sakura," he began, but she pulled her fist from the floor and struck him soundly across the face with the flat of her hand.

"You're too familiar," she growled. "Take your hands off of me— you have no right to touch me. And why would you want to, since I'm obviously  _ too weak  _ for my mission, which must disgust you."

"I didn't say that— "

Sakura stood, cutting him off. "You didn't have to. Be easy, Sasuke. I'll try not to annoy you as much. Maybe next time I'll be able to stomach my failure a little better."

Sakura's strides may have been a little wobbly, but that made them no less powerful as she stepped over Sasuke and walked out the door, taking satisfaction in the way it slammed behind her. 

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Something so simple had never been so difficult for Naruto. 

It was literally just reading. Granted, he didn’t actually do a lot of reading— not nearly as much as Sakura-chan— but he  _ could  _ read, and pretty well for someone who found it difficult to sit still for more than five minutes (as an adult, that is— as a child it had been more along the lines of two minutes). Just… it was hard, especially since he had yet to overcome his fear of looking at any of the actual words in this particular scenario.

Once Sakura came in from work, she seated herself wordlessly on the couch between his legs— Naruto rested his chin on her head and wrapped his arms around her to hold Jiraiya's journal in her lap. They stayed like that for nearly ten minutes, and Naruto made no move to even open the journal. Sakura, ever patient, had said nothing, even though she had come home with tear stains streaking her face that she pretended Naruto wouldn't notice, and at this point, Naruto's only motivation for even trying to complete the nearly impossible task of even  _ beginning  _ to read the journal was because Sakura wouldn’t talk about her terrible, horrible, no-good very bad day until they had finished reading for the night. Or so he found out, after trying to weasel the information out of her.

“Later,” she insisted, pressing a kiss to his nearest available body part, which happened to be the inside of his arm. “This is about you right now.”

Of course it was— so selfless, his Sakura-chan, and stubborn too— and so, once he gathered the strength, Naruto opened the cover of the journal.

And once he had begun reading, he found it as impossible to stop as it had been for him to start. 

Everything he had ever hoped and feared— it was all there. It began small, with the little things like Jiraiya’s crush on Tsunade, and his rivalry with Orochimaru, and eventually the relationship that so painfully reminded Naruto of his own. They had loved fiercely, fought together, and fallen apart, and Naruto felt the heartache in Jiraiya’s words so viscerally that he wondered if it was his own. 

_ History repeats itself,  _ Naruto thought as he read, forcing himself to skim the detailed descriptions of Jiraiya’s three-way trysts so he didn’t pop a ridiculously ill-timed boner. 

And then… and then came the stories of Jiraiya’s students. 

The first few were of little concern to Naruto, at least for the moment. The existence of such powerful tech as one of them possessed was interesting to be sure, but their relevance to Naruto himself was minimal, which made it easy to lose interest… until, of course, he came across the name Namikaze Minato, the late Head of the Family.

According to Jiraiya’s account, Minato-sama had been an exceptionally gifted inventor and was considered a genius from an early age. He was dubbed the “Yellow Flash of Konoha” by his peers for his inhuman speed and accuracy, and though he had lived through a turf war between Family territories, he had a sunny disposition and deep-rooted kindness in his heart. 

Though, that kindness was never the reason the enemies of Konoha were ordered to flee on sight of him. 

After all, Minato-sama was the inventor of Rasengan, an expert seals master, and possessed many, many more accolades befitting one of his rank. He was truly unmatched by any in his generation, and by any since, according to Jiraiya. His wife, Kushina, gave birth to a baby boy before they died in the nuclear explosion that had been given the name Kurama… a baby boy within whom Minato somehow sealed most of the radiation from the blast, creating the most advanced bijuu tech to date, fueling the hastily-implanted AI with the same nuclear energy that had destroyed his own body.

A baby boy, named after a character in one of Jiraiya’s shitty novels.

A baby boy named Naruto. 

“My dad,” Naruto choked, looking at a smiling picture of Minato and Kushina. “Namikaze Minato, Uzumaki Kushina… my parents… ”

_ ‘They would be so proud of their son,’  _ Jiraiya wrote, and there were smudges in the ink as though he had cried onto the paper while he wrote.  _ ‘Kushina got her wish— he is every bit the high-spirited, go-get-em type that she had hoped for, and he wears his father’s looks and his optimism quite well.’ _

“Naruto, this… this is incredible,” Sakura breathed, turning to face him with an expression of incredulous wonder. “I can’t believe it! I mean, I knew that you must have come from sturdy stuff, but the son of Konoha’s Yellow Flash? You have a legitimate claim to be Head of the Family, just like you’ve always wanted! I’m so happy for you, I could just burst.”

But Naruto wasn’t as happy. A sinking feeling accompanied this revelation, and a frown creased his features. “If I really am his son, then why was I put in the poorest, dirtiest orphanage in the city? Why wasn’t I somewhere nice like Sasuke was?”

Sakura shook her head. “We may never know. Let’s keep reading and see if anything reveals itself.”

Jiraiya described the state he had found Naruto in under Kakashi’s care— Kakashi, a pupil of Minato, who had to have known who Naruto was the whole fucking time!— brimming with potential, but young and undisciplined. The rest, Naruto mostly knew, but then there was a small, folded stack paper tucked into a later entry into the journal, and he pulled it out and unfolded it to find pages and pages of writing, with a label at the top of the first page reading “On Uchiha Itachi.”

And oh, the things on those pages would have melted even a heart of stone.

Itachi's life as a child, his betrayal and the Uchiha Massacre, his current affiliation with Akatsuki— it was all written there, but with one crucial fact that changed everything. 

_ Everything.  _

Uchiha Itachi, the man Sasuke wanted so very badly to kill, had been a police officer for all of his adult life while still maintaining his status in the Uchiha branch of Konoha's Family, despite the inherent contradictions within the professions. However, he had been forced to make a choice between his job, his clan, and the Family— an awful, impossible choice, with no outcome that did not include carnage and heartbreak. 

According to Jiraiya's entries, the Uchiha clan had been planning to overthrow the current Family and take over for themselves. It was something about an age-old feud, or a genetic predisposition to arrogance and aggression, or something to that effect. In Naruto's opinion, it didn't make a difference— a traitor is a traitor, no matter his excuse— but there was only one way in which a rebellion of that scale could be snuffed out, at least in the opinion of Danzo, the Chief of Police at the time.

Swift and merciless elimination of all parties involved. 

Women, children, everyone would have to die. His mother, his father, his aunts, uncles, and cousins too would be killed. Everyone who had ever been kind to him, everyone that shared his eyes and his looks and his blood were to die by his hand on Danzo's orders. Naturally, Itachi was furious at the order, and had a mind to refuse, but he knew that if he didn't do it, Danzo would make sure that someone else would, and the fate of his clan was sealed when Danzo granted him permission to spare one soul.

That of his beloved little brother, Sasuke. 

"No," Sakura said hoarsely in a horrified whisper, echoing the cries of Naruto's own heart. 

But it was so. As they continued to read, they found that Itachi was Jiraiya's spy among the Akatsuki, aiding Konoha even as the city— and his own brother, the last of his clan— cursed him bitterly as a traitor and a mass murderer. He was ill, sick with some respiratory disease that Sakura said sounded like tuberculosis, but took no treatment, likely because he took no real joy in living and couldn't care less how much longer he continued to exist. Naruto's heart bled for the man, and then and there he felt a burning desire to reach out to the Uchiha in some way. Itachi deserved to know that he was not alone in life, that someone knew, that someone understood. No one deserved to believe they were alone, especially not one who had sacrificed so much.

"This changes everything," Sakura told him, eyes shining with unshed tears. 

Naruto couldn't agree more. "We have to tell Sasuke. If we can convince him that Itachi doesn't need to be killed to avenge his clan, then— "

"— he wouldn't need to search for power— " Sakura interjected, smiling ever so slightly.

"— and he could come back to Konoha," Naruto finished, closing the journal with a new hope blossoming in his chest. "This is… this is  _ incredible,  _ Sakura, this is our chance!"

"It is," she agreed, taking the journal and setting it on the coffee table with a sly grin. "Is it okay if I text Temari and tell her to bring the party over now? I think I might need an adult beverage after that."

Naruto's brows creased in confusion. "What? I thought Temari was in Suna with everyone else."

Sakura beamed. "Well, that would have been the case, but when I cancelled and told her what we were doing, she decided to convince everyone to come over to Shikamaru's instead so that if you needed an emergency support group, she could bring the whole herd over at one time."

Naruto had the best friends ever. He absolutely  _ did not  _ deserve any one of them, much less all of them. 

"Then  _ hell yeah _ tell her to bring the party, I know who my fucking dad is!"

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Kakashi wanted to bang his head against the wall. 

Sakura had her own apartment. She was a very self-sufficient young woman with plenty of space and comfort and illicit substances at her disposal. In fact, she had the  _ nicest  _ place on this side of Konoha. 

So why she felt the need to bring a herd of party animals into the mansion while Kakashi was trying to sleep, he simply  _ could not  _ figure out. 

"What is that  _ noise _ ?" Iruka grumbled from his side of the bed, groggy with sleep. 

"The kids," Kakashi replied, reaching over to grab a loving handful of Iruka-booty, and the attached Iruka thumped him playfully on the nose. 

"Go put on a robe and tell them to keep it down," the sensei ordered, and as though to show Kakashi he meant business, he flipped over to lay on his other side, faking very badly the act of going back to sleep. 

"Yes, dear," Kakashi sighed, unable to resist giving Iruka's unfairly gorgeous ass a solid smack (and quickly retreat out of thumping range) as he pulled on his robe and plodded downstairs to yell at his children. 

Little did Kakashi know, he would not be doing much of the yelling at all this time around. 

As soon as he made it halfway down the stairs (and halfway through his grumpy old man speech), Naruto locked eyes with him and gave him the death glare of the century. A little taken aback, he paused in his tracks, but a very angry-looking Naruto was approaching him rather quickly, and on impulse, he opened his Sharingan. 

"You, me, outside," Naruto growled, with a right nasty expression. " _ Now. _ "

Kakashi sighed. The boy must have read Jiraiya's journal. 

This was going to be just  _ peachy _ . 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope u guys liked it. The poem is The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and it's my fave--
> 
> Just like you guys ❤❤


	7. Ain't Nobody Above An Ass Whoopin'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine that... a chapter kinda on time..... even if it is a little more filler and a little foreshadowing

"You knew the whole time," Naruto accused, arms folded.

Kakashi studied Naruto with a lazy look on his face, but after so many years of seeing Kakashi affect the same look in times of desperate need, it did nothing to convince Naruto of his slackness (or innocence, for that matter). 

"Yes," Kakashi replied, stoic. "Well, not exactly. I had my suspicions, but I knew for sure before I adopted you."

"And you thought it was a good idea not to  _ tell  _ me?"

"If I had you wouldn't have believed me," came Kakashi's airy response, despite the glowing red of the kyuubi eye seeping into Naurto's natural blue. "And even so, Naruto, there are… many things in the past that are painful to relive."

"Painful?" Naruto snarled, struggling to keep himself and his anger in check. "You wanna talk  _ painful? _ They beat me every day in that orphanage because I had a hyperactivity disorder that I couldnt  _ fucking  _ control— I lived every day in fear and rejection, and you think the  _ past  _ was too painful for you to talk about? What the fuck, Kakashi?"

That did the trick. Kakashi's eyes were hard as steel, and his voice as cold as ice. "No one knew where you were— we weren't even allowed to speak of it. Then when I found you, the son of my sensei and the closest thing I would  _ ever _ have to family, do you think I wanted to break your heart by telling you that you were hated and feared by the entirety of the Family before you were even a year old?" Bitterness tinged Kakashi's features, and his Sharingan had the slight sheen of a teardrop forming. "I wanted to make you strong, to be for you what Minato-sensei was for me in hopes that you would surpass all expectation. And you have."

"That's horse shit," Naruto scowled, but there was a hoarseness in his voice and a stinging in his eyes that meant he was about to cry. "Absolute horse shit."

Kakashi shook his head. "I love you, Naruto… and so did your father. I acknowledge the fact that I've made some mistakes— I don't think I was ever meant to be a parent— but it has been my single-minded goal to get this right, both for Minato-sensei and for… for my team."

_ For Obito, whose eye is crying _ , thought Naruto, remembering how Kakashi had gotten drunk enough to tell them the story of how he'd gotten the Sharingan.  _ For Rin, the girl who sacrificed herself.  _

"I hope I haven't disappointed too terribly much," Kakashi shrugged, looking away, and Naruto suddenly felt his anger dissipate as Obitio's eye began to water even more.

"You— no, you haven't, Kakashi, I just— this is rough." Naruto fought the urge to put his head in his hands. "It's just that I wondered for so many years who my parents were, what they were like… and you knew. Jiraiya knew. Hell, Tsunade probably knew, and none of you were going to tell me."

"I'm sorry," Kakashi said, and Naruto knew that he meant it. 

"Let's go back in," Naruto sighed with mock exasperation and a tiny smile. "I guess I can forgive you inside and out of the elements just as well as I can out here."

"You don't have to, you know."

Naruto's brows scrunched in confusion. "Huh?"

"You don't have to forgive me," Kakashi replied, his disposition still cool and calm— his soldier's facade, the mask he put on to hide away his real feelings. "Just because someone asks for forgiveness doesn't mean they're worthy of it."

"Doesn't it though?" Naruto asked, his mind drifting to Uchiha Itachi. "People can always change— or we may not be looking at the world through their eyes."

At that Kakashi chuckled and ruffled Naruto's hair. 

"You never cease to amaze me," he eye-smiled as he opened the door. "Your father would be so proud."

And Naruto really did cry then, because Kakashi never said anything that he didn't mean— and, because Minato would have been proud, that meant that Kakashi was perhaps even more so because of all that Naruto had to overcome to reach this point. 

_ I'm the luckiest sonofabitch in the world _ , Naruto thought to himself, perhaps a little hysterical.  _ Between my biological father, Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, and Jiraiya-sama, I have enough dads for a barbershop quartet! _

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Sakura was, admittedly, a little drunk, but she could honestly say that she was having  _ the best  _ idea she'd ever had. 

"M'kay, so like, if I have sex with Sasuke-kun in a closet, do you think he'll agree to meet Naruto and I in private somewhere that we could talk?"

Ino, who was also quite intoxicated herself, thought for a minute, then nodded. "But like… maybe  _ almost  _ have sex in the closet, but not quite? Leave 'im dangling, make him  _ chase  _ the puss, then tell him his life is a lie. Should work better that way."

"Puss… " Sakura mused, tugging on a strand of her hair. "What if Naruto and I  _ both _ almost have sex with him in a closet?"

"Does it have to be a closet?"

"Well, unless it's in a room with a patient."

"In the hospital?"

"Uh-huh."

Ino chewed on her nail, considering. "Maybe. Or maybe if you and  _ Naruto _ actually fucked in the closet, or somewhere you know he'd find you. That's enough to set anyone on fire."

"We could invite him to join."

"Look, not touch— you want him  _ hungry. _ "

Choji, who hadn't exactly been listening in but was close enough to hear, perked up at that. 

"I'm hungry," he interjected forlornly, poking at his empty chip bag.

"Not that kinda hungry," Ino enlightened him sagely. "Like…  _ puss  _ hungry."

"Like… how Genma-san is always whoring around?"

"Sorta," Ino replied. "Except a little less… Genma."

Choji nodded, and then as Shikamaru passed them on his way to the kitchen, a curious brightness filled Ino's expression. 

"Oi, Shikamaru!" She called, leaning sideways into Sakura so heavily that she nearly knocked both of them over. "Help me and Sakura figure out how to make Sasuke-kun watch her and Naruto fuck!"

"Just tell him the tickets are free," Shikamaru joked, but barely managed to dodge the book Ino lobbed at him in retaliation. 

"This is  _ serious _ , we gotta have a plan!" Ino huffed, crossing her arms.

A dark glint appeared in Shikamaru's eyes, and he approached the two scheming women warily.

_ As he should,  _ Sakura thought through the haze of alcohol.  _ We're dangerous as fuck. _

"So if it's a plan you want… how much are you willing to pay for it?" Shikamaru smirked. 

"Twenty bucks?' Sakura suggested, and Shikamaru shook his head.

"That's laughable. Anything else?"

Ino chewed on the end of her hair, which meant she was about to say something big enough to get them what they wanted. "Your bar tab at the kink club downtown."

Sakura opened her mouth to protest— even drunk off her ass, she knew that was a hefty price to pay, even accounting for the fact that it would be a plan from the Family's most accomplished strategist— but before she could say another word, Ino and Shikamaru shook hands, sealing the deal. 

However, Ino's wicked smirk had both Sakura and Shikamaru wondering if they should take a step or five back. Before that very moment, it seemed to Sakura that Ino's pale blue eyes had never shown more of sociopathic Yamanaka shine to them— a sure sign that trouble was about to happen. Sure enough, Ino began counting down from five, and everyone who was within earshot went taught as a bowstring. 

"… three… two… one."

On cue, Sakura's cell phone rang, and she answered it to hear Tsunade on the other end of the line. 

"Sakura."

"Yes, Shishou?" Sakura answered, putting her on speaker so everyone could hear.

"I have a job for you tonight. Someone has been selling some seriously fucked up drugs on my turf— kids falling out from overdose left and right— and I just got confirmation that it's the owner of the kink club downtown. I figured you'd be up to a little hell-raising on a Friday night, so, how about it?"

Shikamaru's jaw dropped to the floor.

"I'm a little drunk," Sakura admitted, and Tsunade laughed heartily. 

"You can take these guys, even drunk. And you know what? Don't even worry about property damage. Just get out there and fuck it up."

With that glorious sentiment, Tsunade hung up and Shikamaru looked back and forth between Sakura and Ino, bewildered. 

"Witchcraft," he muttered, shaking his head.

"You should be used to it," Ino giggled, nodding toward Temari, who was talking animatedly with her brothers, Gaara and Kankuro. "You married the worst of us all."

"Speaking of which," Sakura mused, twirling a piece of hair between her fingers as a plan formed in her brain. "Can I borrow her for a little bit? Ino and I need help with hair and makeup."

  
  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Konoha was a huge city. It was always thrumming with life and activity,  _ especially  _ on a Friday night. At any given moment, one was likely to be surrounded by complete and total strangers, unable to see past the crowd to find a familiar face even if they wanted to— and at Top to Bottom, the most popular kink club downtown, that was always the case— which was why Sasuke let Suigestu drag him out. Well, that and the fact that he had come  _ way  _ too close to Sakura for  _ way  _ too long for one day, and he'd needed a drink.

Unfortunately, coming anywhere near Konoha was very swiftly becoming a decision he regretted making.

Of course, he saw them as soon as they walked in— how could he not? Even in a crowd, that bunch was hard to miss. The whole Konoha crew was there, including Shikamaru, Choji, Ino, Tenten, Neji, Lee, Hinata, Kiba, Shino, some black-haired guy, Sakura, and, of course, Naruto, the leader of the pack in terms of both volume and color. In addition, there were some Suna folks hanging around— just the sand siblings, from what Sasuke could tell. The lot of them were loud, rambunctious, and disgustingly happy, and before he thought about it, Sasuke growled lowly in his throat as he watched them. 

"Down, boy," Suigetsu joked as he sipped his drink, watching a dom walk his sub across the floor using a leash. "You don't even have on a collar, Sasuke-kun. Would you like me to buy you one? I'm sure Karin would thank me once she got over her nose bleed."

"I truly, genuinely despise you," Sasuke replied, as deadpan as he could manage while his eyes were bugging out of his head as he took in Sakura and Naruto, who were both wearing skin-tight, see-through black mesh shirts— and  _ oh God,  _ Sakura wasn't wearing a bra. 

If he activated the Sharingan just for a moment, it couldn't hurt anything, right? It's not like they would know… 

_ Oh _ but then they found a booth directly in Sasuke's line of sight and Sakura climbed into Naruto's lap and started  _ kissing  _ him like he was air. Admittedly, Sasuke was still a little shaken after the ordeal with the surgery earlier that day, but if her enthusiasm for sucking face was any indication, Sakura was doing just fine.

"Sasuke, dude, what on earth are you looking—  _ oh. _ "

Suigetsu, apparently, had also noticed Sakura and Naruto making out across the way. Sasuke, of course, hadn't been able to tear his eyes away from the sight, so he wouldn't actually know what Suigetsu was looking at, but if he had to guess… well. 

"They're here to fuck someone up," Sasuke noted, mostly to himself. He watched Naruto grab a handful of Sakura's ass, and Sasuke wasn't sure which one he was more jealous of. 

"Fuck someone up… what are you talking about?" Suigetsu asked, puzzled. 

"They're high up in the Family," Sasuke replied, realizing suddenly that he was, in fact, quite drunk, and beginning to be a little hard. "They don't come places like this. If they did, they would've come with me."

Suigetsu was still confused, but wisely said nothing. 

Just as Sasuke had predicted, it wasn't long before Sakura slid from Naruto's lap, followed by Ino— a ladies' mission, it seemed— and they disappeared into the back, undoubtedly armed with information gathered from their time in the booth. It only took three minutes before the screams started, and only five before the chaos spread to the rest of the club as dealers, suppliers, and all other associates were taken down and out. 

"Holy shit!" Suigetsu swore as he dodged a chair. "That one, with the pink hair and the great tits, man she's fucking  _ strong _ . I don't even think I could lift that. Or make a crater that size. Or at all."

Sasuke made a noncommittal noise, watching not only Sakura, but also Naruto— there was something undeniably hot about watching him watch  _ her  _ with that hungry look in his eyes— until Sasuke noticed the dark-haired man he hadn't recognized from earlier staring at  _ him.  _ The man's gaze was a cold and calculating one that reminded Sasuke very much of Itachi, and despite his cool exterior, it unnerved Sasuke quite a bit. Instinctively, he knew that this guy, from Konoha or not, knew exactly who Sasuke was and didn't give a damn, which made him very dangerous indeed.

(Either that, or very foolish, but by the way he never dismissed Sasuke nor Suigetsu from his line of sight, Sasuke was going to bet dangerous.) 

"Kiba, Hinata, Shino!" Sakura called, dropping the last unconscious thug to the ground. "See if you guys can round up the last of this stuff."

She tossed a small packet to Kiba, who sniffed it along with his dog, Akamaru, then handed it to Shino and Hinata. Together, they combed the place even as people milled around, still dancing and sexing it up all over the place— and if one of the Family asked for their drugs, well, no one put up a fight after the scene Sakura and Ino made.

And still, the irksome staring continued, preventing Sasuke from fully enjoying Sakura's self-satisfied smirk. The man's expression was void, blank, completely empty— and, different, upon further inspection, from Itachi, or even Sasuke himself. It wasn't necessarily cold, or angry, or any other human feeling. It was… it was  _ nothing.  _

Just before Sasuke got up and started something that he would most certainly finish, Hinata, Kiba, and Shino finished up, which was the cue for Konoha, party of fifteen, to head out. Curiously, the man that had been staring at Sasuke pulled out a very fancy-looking pen and notepad, scribbling something down before tearing off the sheet of paper and leaving it on the table of their booth. 

Sasuke's brows lifted as he watched the ink on the page come to life even as the party left, forming the shape of a mouse that scurried over to him and onto his table before melting into separate words. They were only there for a moment— just long enough to read— but Sasuke felt his entire face grow cherry red with fury at what he saw.

_ 'I've tasted Sakura's cum— and Naruto's— and you don't even know my name.  _

_ Au revoir! _

_ -Sai.' _

Sasuke was livid. Absolutely  _ furious.  _ He could have breathed fire—  _ literally _ , he was physically capable of it— and yet, what right had he to be angry? For once, his anger was completely unjustified. He had no claim over Naruto and Sakura— they could let whoever they'd like into their bed and it shouldn't mean a damn thing to him. That was what being broken up was all about.

But then… why did Sasuke's chest clench so violently at the thought of someone else with intimate knowledge of his lovers? Why did the thought of someone else with his tongue on Sakura's clit and his mouth around Naruto's cock bother Sasuke so much? Was this burning, clenching sensation in his chest…  _ jealously? _

And this 'Sai' person, he looked an awful lot like Sasuke himself… it was actually a little uncanny. 

It made Sasuke sick. 

"A replacement," he ground out, smashing his fist on the table. "They've  _ fucking  _ replaced me!"

Suigetsu's eyes widened in fear. "Hey, woah, Sasuke, I think you might be a little drunk— "

"Of course I'm fucking drunk, you imbecile!" He raged, and Suigetsu flinched. "I'm drunk and my fucking exes showed up and ruined everything!"

"Sasuke— "

"What?" Sasuke snapped, hurt and regret surfacing in his sea of anger.

For a moment, Suigetsu paused, looking Sasuke up and down. Then, with a surprising amount of insight and solemnity, he said, "You're still in love with them, aren't you?"

"I— no," Sasuke protested weakly, fumbling around for a convincing lie. "I never was. In love with her, that is. The woman I was with."

"Sasuke." Suigetsu's expression was a mix between concern and amusement. "It's no secret that you used to fuck around with the kyuubi and that medic girl— we all have our amorous pursuits."

"I'm not in love with them," Sasuke growled, folding his arms. "I'm not."

Suigetsu shook his head. "You should have seen yourself watching them. You looked like… like you were starved. I've never seen you like that." 

Something within Sasuke started to crack. "No, I… look, they've already taken someone else into their bed, someone who can be what they want and what they need— "

"So what?'

That stopped Sasuke in his tracks. Suigetsu looked perfectly nonchalant, fiddling with the umbrella that came with his fruity drink as though what he'd said was supposed to make perfect sense. 

"What is that supposed to mean?" Sasuke demanded, folding his arms. 

"Go kick his ass, prove your worth," Suigetsu chuckled. "Show them you're the alpha."

"I don't need that," Sasuke replied, ever-so-slightly haughty. 

"But it still might work."

"They're not that kind of people. Besides, that guy is probably perfectly innocent— no need for me to go and kick his ass for nothing. Waste of energy."

Suigetsu snorted. "Nobody is perfectly innocent. Ain't nobody above an ass-whoopin'. Just take your darling sweethearts for example. Is there anything 'perfectly innocent' about them?"

_ No,  _ Sasuke thought wryly, his chest throbbing as he and his bruised skin remembered how hard Sakura had shoved him away earlier that day.  _ Not at all. _

"Still not a reason to fight some stranger."

"Suit yourself. Maybe you could try the normal human approach and just talk to them."

Sasuke rolled his eyes. 

_ Not in this fucking lifetime,  _ he thought, remembering every other attempt they'd had at 'talking things out'.  _ I'd really like to keep this car, thanks. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My chapter title is a lie, Sai is absolutely above an ass whoopin' on most days.


	8. Mondays Suck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow so I hate myself, not only am I late but also I am just NOT satisfied with this chapter.... but it's unlikely that I'll EVER be satisfied with it because the characters put me in a chokehold and made me write it :/
> 
> Basically I'm sorry and it's midterms and I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it :)

Sakura and Naruto spent the weekend at the Hatake estate. 

After reading Jiraiya's journal and coming to terms with its contents, Naruto was emotionally exhausted, and being in the company of people who loved him— especially Iruka— made it all easier for him to bear, especially once he'd given them all the information he had on Uchiha Itachi. Somehow, just talking it through seemed to help, and Iruka and Kakashi were probably the best listeners in the world where Naruto was concerned.

It was, Sakura observed, as though a literal weight had been lifted from him— as if somehow the little things, like whenever one of them settled in next to him on the couch— made all the difference in the world. 

In a way, Sakura understood. She missed being home, even if it presented the challenge of missing Sasuke a little more than usual. It was… nice, to have people around. After Sasuke betrayed Konoha and Naruto left for training, she'd moved out and plunged herself into work, never really having anyone over unless it was Ino, who usually forced or coerced her way in with threats and cheap wine. Sakura hadn't even known how lonely she'd been until Naruto came home and she began to be around her favorite people again. 

However, even though it might be nice, there were some things about living with Kakashi that Sakura had forgotten, and she was admittedly a little startled to see him still sitting where they'd left him after dinner the night before when she stumbled sleepily into the kitchen at six o'clock on Monday morning. He was even in the same clothes, but his mask was down, and a bottle of whiskey sat before him half-empty. It wasn't hard to deduce the situation, and yet it was always a surprise to Sakura to see Kakashi crying.

"Sakura," he rasped when he caught sight of her, his voice deep and raw and broken. His eyes were bloodshot, and he looked utterly miserable. "I'm sorry. For everything"

Sakura's brow creased with concern. She knew Kakashi was drunk, but the droop of his shoulders, the tortured expression he bore… it was unlike him. "For what, Kakashi?"

"For sucking as a sensei, as a guardian, as a  _ father, _ " he replied, his right hand in a white-knuckled grip. "For always pushing Naruto and Sasuke even when I knew you were just as full of potential, maybe even more so, and— "

Sakura's heart leapt into her throat. Surely, he couldn't think… ? "No, Kakashi, that's not true, you— "

"I neglected you," he snapped, his eyes full of a self-loathing so intense that Sakura could hardly bear to look at. "It's no excuse, but you remind me so much of Rin, my old teammate, that sometimes, especially back then… I couldn't bring myself to push you at all. All I wanted to do was protect you, hold you back from anything that wasn't normal and safe and good, and yet when I failed you, you still found a way to surpass all expectation."

"Kakashi— "

"Let me finish," he sniffed, wiping his nose with his sleeve. "I wasn't strong enough to teach you and train you the way you deserved, and I hate myself for it… but you weren't the only one I failed."

With tears streaming down his face, Kakashi looked at her and spoke softly, yet with a conviction that could move a mountain with its strength. 

"You are the brightest of your generation, Sakura, but if things go sour and you're put in a position where you have to fight against Sasuke, he will kill you without a second thought if he can, and it's my fault."

"Kakashi," Sakura sighed, her heart bleeding as she took his hand in hers. "None of this is your fault."

"Then who was it that implanted lightning tech in Sasuke's arm, hm?" Kakashi queried bitterly, his bare face oddly expressive in the harsh lighting of the kitchen. "Who was it that taught him how to kill?"

"The same man that taught him how to bandage a wound," Sakura replied gently, pulling Kakashi into a side-hug. "The same man who tried to teach him that people are more important than missions, and teammates are to be loved and cherished companions. You did your best with him, but revenge just had a stronger grip on him than anyone or anything else."

Kakashi shook his head. "But I did fail you. Both of you. There's no fixing or denying that."

"Kakashi, look at me."

Sakura waited until two mismatched eyes— one coal black and the other swirling red— were staring back at her, and then she began to speak. 

"Naruto, Sasuke, and I were orphans when you met us," she told him, her voice stern yet gentle— her clinical business voice that she hoped wouldn't crack under the weight of her memories. "No one wanted us. You took us in and gave us a home when no one else would even give us the time of day, and then you gave us the skills we needed to survive. You were a godsend, a blessing and a gift to us, Kakashi, you were the only shot we ever had at life." She paused for a moment, trying to bend her emotions to her will, but in the end, she let her voice wobble a bit as tears welled in her eyes. "You gave me confidence in myself. You were the first person to tell me that I was in control of my own fate, that I was no pawn of destiny, but instead a living, breathing person who could make a life for herself that was all her own. So what if you trained with the boys more than me? You gave me the tools I needed to forge ahead in my own way, and I will be forever grateful to you for that."

At that, Kakashi truly sobbed, a shuddering, ugly sound that ripped Sakura to shreds with every "I'm sorry," that he managed to croak between the sounds of his anguish. 

"It's alright," she replied, every time. "I love you, it's alright."

She stayed with him, consoling him until Iruka padded downstairs, and upon seeing the emotional disaster zone that had become the kitchen, he silently grabbed the phone off the wall, dialed a few numbers, and spoke softly into the receiver. Sakura caught enough of the conversation to know that Iruka was calling in an absence for the day and contacting a substitute teacher, but she stayed there until Iruka was ready to lead Kakashi upstairs, refusing to let him suffer alone.

"Thank you, Sakura," Iruka told her as he guided Kakashi to his feet. "I was so tired last night that I didn't even notice that he didn't come to bed and I just— "

Sakura held up a hand. Finger-pointing and playing the blame game never helped anyone, and Kakashi didn't sleep half the time anyways— how was Iruka supposed to know that Kakashi was having one of his episodes instead of going for a midnight stroll? 

"Take care of him, sensei," she smiled tiredly. "It's a full-time job."

Unfortunately, even though Sakura was sure Kakashi would be fine under Iruka's care, she still felt a knot of worry forming in her stomach. She was unable to finish so much as half of her coffee, and she felt her hands shake ever so slightly as she considered Shikamaru's strategy, Kakashi's haunting words, and whether or not even going to work today was a good idea as she drove Konoha's busy streets in the direction of Orochimaru's research facility.

Be that as it may, as soon as she put her car in park, her phone buzzed with a sweet little message from Naruto that read  _ 'You got this :)'  _ and she absolutely  _ melted.  _ He was so sweet, her Naruto-kun… and so right! She  _ did  _ have this, didn't she? She was Haruno Sakura, the most brilliant medic of her age— of course she did!

And so, with renewed confidence, she shouldered her bag and walked in, The Plan buzzing ever-present just below the surface of her thoughts. 

(After all, today could be the perfect day for The Plan. Orochimaru was scheduled for a surgery, and Sakura wouldn't be in the OR because she had other matters to attend to— it was almost certain that Sasuke would be in the building at some point to do Orochimaru's bidding. Granted, if he arrived after Orochimaru had finished the operation, then that did Sakura no good, but if he arrived beforehand, Sakura would have her chance… 

And she'd be damned if she would let it pass her by.)

  
  
  
  


***

  
  


Sasuke dropped his take-out bags to the floor without even thinking about it. 

There were way too many things happening all at once. Firstly, Sakura should have been in the OR, not in Orochimaru's office. Secondly, she  _ certainly  _ should not have been kissing  _ anyone,  _ much less a woman— Sakura liked men so much she had two of them, for fuck's sake— and yet there she stood, making out with one of the nurses like it was a breezy Sunday afternoon. Lastly, Sasuke was feeling too many emotions all at once, but the clearest one was white-hot jealousy, and he cleared his throat loudly just for the hell of it. 

"Oh, Sasuke-kun," Sakura purred, eyes half-lidded as she peeked around the nurse that she still held close. "We were just talking about you. Yuki-chan wanted to know how you liked to be kissed, and since she said that she's a hands-on learner, well… "

"Ah, actually, we were just leaving, weren't we, Sakura-chan?" Yuki, the nurse, replied, squirming uncomfortably under the heat of Sasuke's glare. 

Sakura, to her credit, showed no such discomfort. "I wasn't, but you can go if you want. And Yuki? Close the door behind you as you leave— Sasuke-kun and I have some business to discuss."

As soon as the door to the office clicked shut behind Yuki, Sakura's body language changed so drastically that Sasuke could almost believe she was a different person. No longer were her eyes half-lidded, but wide and alert— her posture straightened and her stance widened for balance and strength of motion. Immediately, Sasuke began to feel more than a little like he'd walked into a trap, but she gave him no time to dwell on it as she moved into his personal space and spoke in a murmur so soft that he had to strain to hear. 

"Naruto and I have come across some information that might interest you," she told him, "but we'll need to meet somewhere private and neutral to discuss it. This information is… sensitive in nature, and could do real damage if it falls into the wrong hands."

Sasuke remained impassive. He smelt a rat somewhere in all this, but he wasn't sure where. "What information could you possibly offer me that would have any value?"

Sakura shrugged, looking away from his eyes to focus on his Adam's apple as he swallowed, then sent chills down his spine as she raked her eyes back up to meet his with a hint of danger in them. "Oh, it's nothing much… just a detailed description of the political machinations behind the Uchiha Massacre, of your brother and his movements for the last decade, among other things."

Sasuke's heart pounded in his chest. There was no  _ way _ , and yet there wasn't the slightest hint of any of Sakura's tells across her features that would indicate a lie. She was being completely truthful, but… how?

"If you're interested, meet us at this address tomorrow night at seven," she told him, pressing a folded slip of paper into his hand. "Come alone— you're not going to want anyone else involved."

"How do you know any of that?" he hissed, grabbing her lab coat in a clenched fist, suspicion rising in him. "And what's in it for you?"

Sakura only smiled. "We'll bring our proof with us when we meet. And as for what's in it for us… the venue. You're paying." When he raised a brow, she added, "It's only fair, since we have something you want and not the other way around, and you obviously have the change to spare."

With that, she pried his fingers off of her coat, stepped around him and over the spilled takeout, and waved over her shoulder.

"See you around," she called, and Sasuke decided then and there that he'd be  _ damned  _ if he was going to let it be at that. 

There was barely enough time to blink before he'd grabbed Sakura and pulled her into the same supply closet that he'd nearly killed her in when they'd first encountered one another at the hospital. As the door closed and locked behind them, Sasuke grabbed Sakura's hand before she could slap him across the face and used it to pull her close to him, locking eyes with her and matching her glare for glare. 

"I don't know what your angle is," he confessed darkly, his face inches from hers. "I don't know what you know, what you want, or what business you think you have in my life— but I do know this. You have _never,_ not once in your miserable little life been a fan of kissing women, and you have been even _less_ of a fan of coming within ten feet of women that like _me_ , so you can drop whatever act that was back there and tell me what the fuck is going on."

Sakura smirked, as though she were somehow victorious, and snatched her hand back to cross her arms before she answered. "I don't owe you a  _ damn  _ thing, Uchiha, so you can fuck right off with that attitude of yours." 

Oh, that did it. That was the  _ final  _ straw, Sasuke was not taking any more of that smartass fucking mouth. It didn't matter that she wasn't his anymore, that he shouldn't care about her— it didn't make two shits if she could break every bone in his body while naming them, either. All he could think of was how angry, how  _ jealous  _ he was, and how much it hurt that she could toy with him and dangle herself in front of him as though it didn't mean anything to her. 

In all the ways he had been alone in his suffering, this was perhaps the worst. 

"You think you fucking know someone," he snarled, letting go of all his inhibitions as he placed both of his hands on the sides of her face and kissed her soundly.

At first, he was met with resistance— Sakura pushed him away, even moved her mouth away from his, but when he grabbed her chin and held it insistently as he kissed her, she relented, melting into him even though she could have pushed him away (and through the next couple walls) if she had truly wanted to. Instead, she kissed back, sending lightning up Sasuke's spine as he felt her teeth pull at his bottom lip and her hands fist tightly in his hair.

"You're irresistible," he growled, grabbing her hips and pulling her closer. "You're irresistible and you fucking know it, you use it to your advantage like this is some kind of game."

He paused long enough to put his tongue to proper, filthy use, then groaned as Sakura yanked back particularly hard on his hair, just the way he liked. 

"Well, Sakura-chan," Sasuke continued as she moved her attention to a spot on his neck, biting down hard enough that he knew he would feel it for days. "I don't play games, but if I did play, it would be for keeps, so don't  _ fucking  _ toy with me if you aren't prepared to lose."

"Fucking Uchihas," she growled, a curse she must have picked up from her Senju mentor. Her emerald eyes were aflame, and Sasuke briefly wished for firey sapphire, too, before refocusing on the here and now. "I'm not fucking scared of you. If you want to intimidate me, you'll have to do better than that."

And that was what Sasuke liked the most about her, and Naruto too— they were fearless, relentless, and passionate to a fault. It made hating them so much harder than it should have been.

"Well maybe you should be," Sasuke retorted, resting his forehead against hers. "I'm an S-class criminal, after all."

Suddenly, Sakura went deadly still, and her grip in his hair relaxed. She averted her gaze, withdrawing back into herself as she took a step away from Sasuke, who reluctantly let go of his hold on her at the sudden change. He knew that look, the bitter disappointment in her eyes, and it cut him to the bone.

"You're right," she told him, still and somber. "You're an S-class criminal, and you're a traitor to Konoha, and you have recently tried to kill me."

Sasuke opened his mouth to reply, but Sakura cut him off.

"Twice."

Sasuke frowned."It was only once. The second time was Naruto."

Sakura shook her head with a wry smile. "You really don't get it, do you? You really don't see anything wrong with your logic here?"

Before Sasuke could come up with an adequate answer, Sakura moved to walk around him, towards the exit, but he caught her arm as she tried to pass, feeling shell-shocked and off-kilter enough not to know what he wanted. Her expression was completely closed, divulging nothing— Sasuke wondered how his naturally expressive little cherry blossom had managed to subdue her features so well— and she shrugged his hand off of her without a word, staring at him as though to dare him to try and stop her again. 

"Goodbye, Sasuke-kun," she told him as her feet crossed the threshold. "We'll be waiting for you tomorrow."

With that, she was gone, and Sasuke felt strangely empty, as though he had forgotten something, but wasn't quite sure what it was. 

  
  


***

  
  
  


In two places at once, crimson eyes watched carefully from the shadows the future of Konoha. 

Outside Konoha, in the deepest part of a forest on Orochimaru's land, Uchiha Sasuke was tearing up the trees, the ground,  _ everything  _ with fistfuls of lightning. His fury drove his training, but never made him sloppy— every motion had a purpose, every breath served a higher plan. It was a thing of beauty to watch, even with failing eyesight. 

Inside Konoha, on Hatake land, Uzumaki Naruto and Haruno Sakura spoke in hushed tones, in brushes of fingertips, and in shedding of tears. Their love for each other and for Sasuke was immense and powerful— it wasn't hard for even an outsider to tell that they were unshakeable, unbreakable, and unstoppable in the face of any challenge because of it. This, too, was beautiful, and laid open an old wound on the heart of the observer that might never heal properly anyways.

_ They love you, Sasuke,  _ the observer thought, watching and waiting. 

A lightning bolt hit a tree at the same time that Naruto's teeth clacked against Sakura's in their passion, and Uchiha Itachi allowed himself a small smile.

_ Find your way home to them, little brother. They're your center and your strength— and Konoha is your home. Our home.  _

Satisfied by what he saw, the eldest of the last Uchiha siblings turned away from both scenes, and dual experiences became one as he dispelled his clone that watched the medic and the Jinchuriki. For every mistake Itachi made, for every sin he committed, he could count a blessing and a gift— to see Sasuke alive, to see the people who loved him most safe and sound, was truly a reward, and it was all that Itachi asked for out of life. Everything he did was worth it just to know that the future was bright and full of love for his little brother.

_ Forgive me, Sasuke,  _ he thought as he walked away.  _ Forgive me, and keep your gaze away from the past and onto the future.  _

  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there's that, next chapter is gonna be THE PLAN.....
> 
> Probably. 
> 
> Unless I or my characters get lost on the road of life.....
> 
> But anyways, remember the smut tag? Yeah that's on the way ;)


	9. The Icha Icha Fantasy Hotel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is exactly what the title makes it sound like :)

When Sakura said 'hotel', Naruto thought beige walls and tasteful yet subdued interior decoration. 

As it turned out, the Icha Icha Fantasy Hotel was  _ nothing  _ like that. 

The lobby was lit by black lights, and everything, right down to sponge-paint on the walls, was a shade of neon. There were couples everywhere, all in various states of dress— or  _ undress _ , as it were— and upon closer inspection, Naruto observed that they were kissing and touching and engaging in all manner of lewd activities. Jiraiya would have died of perverted pleasure right then and there at the sight of the hotel based off of his awful books (Naruto could practically hear his delighted giggles), but it wasn't really Naruto's scene. Instead of thrilled, he felt a little embarrassed and a  _ lot  _ out of his element, and he wondered how on earth people could enjoy having absolutely  _ no  _ privacy. 

Ironically, sweet Sakura-chan hardly batted an eye at any of it, never even pausing to look around as she spoke with the receptionist, who informed them that their rooms had already been paid for and a key had been left for them at the desk. 

"What the hell kinda place did you bring me to, Sakura-chan?" Naruro laughed nervously. "This looks like something out of Kaka-sensei's wet dreams."

At that, Sakura made a face. "How would you know what Kakashi's wet dreams consist of?"

"Jiraiya told me what Kakashi told him about them." Naruto shook his head, remembering the conversation as though it were yesterday — there had been  _ way  _ too much sake involved in that night.  _ "All  _ about them _. _ "

Sakura looked appropriately squeamish."In detail?"

"Oh yeah," Naruto laughed, lacing his fingers together behind his head. "It was traumatizing."

"Eugh, gross," she grumbled as she pressed the button for the elevator. "But as for why I picked this location… well, it's on neutral territory, and in the event that we get caught meeting here, we can claim that it was for sex and nothing more and it would make sense. It's the perfect out."

She paused for a moment, a red blush staining her cheeks, before she added, "Plus… it really is kind of a nice place."

Naruto let loose a foxy grin. "Sakura-chan, you  _ pervert,  _ what would baa-chan say?"

"That I've been around  _ you  _ for too long," she quipped as they exited the elevator. "Let's see, Room 220… right here."

Just for a moment, both of them paused, standing outside the doorway, and Naruto's stomach reminded him why it was in knots. There was no doubt that Sasuke was waiting for them right behind that door, and there was no telling what would happen once they crossed that threshold— it was terrible, wonderful, and frightening all at once. Even the kyuubi within him stirred at Naruto's racing pulse and muddled emotions— and, unfortunately, he could take one look at the heated flush on Sakura's face and tell that she was in the same sad shape. 

"Here goes," she sighed, inserting the key and opening the door with such trepidation that it appeared to be physically painful to do so. 

It was a regrettable truth that Naruto wasn't sure he could have ever been truly prepared for what he saw once the door had opened, even if he'd had a thousand years' notice. Admittedly, Naruto wasn't all that great at being prepared for stuff anyways, but this… this was on another level of unexpected. 

There in the doorway stood Sasuke, dripping wet from a shower with a towel wrapped around his waist as he looked in the mirror hung on the wall.

"Tch," he said, glancing in their direction with piercing eyes of shining onyx. "Ever heard of knocking?"

Naruto wanted to laugh in disbelief. It was so arrogant, so  _ presumptuous  _ of him to just  _ say  _ shit like that, to be practically naked, and wet, and  _ beautiful _ when Naruro was supposed to be serious and somber and  _ not fucking horny.  _ In fact, it was so much like  _ his  _ Sasuke, like  _ their  _ Sasuke, that Naruto couldn't remember one single reason why he shouldn't kiss that bastard breathless then and there.

And so he did.

It was good—  _ so  _ good— that he could almost ignore the fury radiating from Sakura as she closed the door behind them and dug a sharp elbow into Naruto as she shoved past them. Surprisingly, Sasuke seemed similarly unaffected by her mood and lazily explored Naruto's mouth as though it  _ hadn't  _ been three years— as though they hadn't tried to kill each other too many times now. In that moment, nothing existed for Naruto but desire and intense longing, and it felt almost like he'd been put under a spell until they both pulled away for air, resting their foreheads together. 

"I wasn't supposed to do that," Naruto thought aloud, looking away from Saskue's eyes, which were searching his own as intensely as he would an instruction pamphlet for new tech. 

"Hn. You never could stick to a plan."

Naruto growled, grabbing a handful of raven hair before diving back into another kiss. Unfortunately, he liked Sasuke much better when he wasn't taking 

"Fuck you, bastard," he breathed onto Sasuke's lips. "You started it by being naked."

After that, there was little time (or oxygen) for talking until Sasuke grabbed a handful of Naruto's ass and threw an off-hand comment over his shoulder. 

"I take it you're still angry with me, Sakura?"

Suddenly ashamed, Naruto hazarded a glance over at their missing piece, who had her back to them and her arms folded as she stared out the window. 

"Are you still a traitor to Konoha?" she shot back without missing a beat. 

Naruto shuddered at the coldness in her voice, but Sasuke didn't seem to mind. 

"Yes."

"Then yes, I'm still angry with you."

Naruto's heart sank to his stomach. This was all so fucked up. They should be coming here to celebrate someone's birthday or a promotion or their anniversary, they should be kissing and grinding and fucking all night long, not hurling hurtful words across the room at each other like the ticking time bomb they were. 

"Fine," Sasuke drawled, pulling Naruto close and licking the shell of his ear. "Be that way."

Naruto sighed. He really fucking hated it when Sakura was right. Gentle, yet firm, Naruto placed his hands on Sasuke's shoulders and pushed him back even as he wanted nothing more than to hog all Sasuke's oxygen and saliva for himself. 

"We came here for a reason, Sasuke. Put some clothes on, then we can talk." 

Stoically, Sasuke observed Naruto for a long moment, his gaze white-hot and arousing even in its nonchalance. "I see. I'll only be a moment."

While Sasuke retreated to the bathroom, Naruto looked worriedly at Sakura, whose shoulders were shaking. She was most likely either crying or fighting the urge to cry, and Naruto knew he was partly to blame for it— this was a high-pressure situation to begin with, but for reasons Naruto never really understood, Sakura often felt excluded from their relationship (if it could be called that) and regarded herself as superfluous. Most likely, when Naruto had lost his cool and started making out with Sasuke, she'd begun to feel that exclusion acutely, and now Naruto wasn't even sure how he should apologize. 

In short, he really,  _ really  _ hated it.

Before Naruto could come up with anything remotely intelligent to say, Sasuke exited the bathroom in a pair of dark wash jeans and a white t-shirt— damn him, he was so hot— which somehow effectively triggered an entire reboot of Naruto's brain. That is to say, before he could even  _ think  _ to repress Kurama, the bastard jumped to conclusions based on Naruto's emotions, flashing his eyes red, extending slight fangs, and flaring energy so potent that it filled the room. 

Smugly, Sasuke raised an eyebrow before invading Naruto's personal space once more. 

"You're excitable today, Naruto. Tell me, what does the kyuubi want now? Violence? Or is it sex?"

"Kurama has no business with any of this," Naruto hissed, mentally kicking at the kyuubi's cage. "This is between you and I and Sakura-chan."

Sasuke smirked. "Indeed."

And then Sasuke's mouth was on his again, and Naruto couldn't concentrate at all. 

Somehow, Naruto ended up sitting in the desk chair that was across from the beds with Sasuke in his lap, and he couldn't even muster up enough extra energy to feel sorry for it. He was so  _ fucking hard,  _ and every movement of Sasuke against his dick was divine. Distantly, he thought worriedly of Sakura, longing for her,  _ aching  _ for her, but Sasuke's tongue was quite insistent on making him forget anything but his arousal. 

However, it seemed that Sasuke was similarly affected by Sakura's continued distance, and he spoke plainly and assertively against Naruto's lips.

"Sakura. Come." 

Sasuke extended his hand, but Sakura remained firmly where she sat, sparing not even a glance their way. 

"I'm not a dog, Sasuke-kun, so don't call me like one," was her cutting reply, and before Naruto realized it, Sasuke was across the room, pushing her down on the mattress and shoving his tongue down her throat. 

Unsurprisingly, Sasuke's back hit the glass of the window hard enough for it to crack, and his lip bled sluggishly from where she'd bitten him, but the grin he wore was darkly victorious. Naruto's heart pounded as he watched the two of them watch each other, and Sasuke's eyes changed from his ordinary black to the vermillion of the Sharingan tech. 

"Do you hate me, Sakura?" he asked, still grinning. It looked wrong, so wrong on him, but Sakura was fierce and strong as she glared up at him from where he'd pushed her down.

"Sometimes, yes," she snapped, and Sasuke chuckled darkly, but stayed where he was.

Naruto was struck suddenly with the startling image of a pitch black panther and a white she-wolf stained pale pink with blood, circling each other, waiting for the kill, and he felt a little sick to his stomach. Instinctively, he placed himself between them, which might have been a mistake, since Sasuke took that as an opportunity to resume their earlier makeout session with a truly filthy kiss.

How did he  _ do  _ that? How did Sasuke pull Naruto so deep into their own little world that everything else disappeared? It was so immersive, so all-consuming, like a fire in his blood the refused to be quenched. Naruto had never experienced anything like it in his whole life. 

But then there was Sakura, and he could hear her moving, walking towards the door, and Naruto's heart sank to his gut as he ripped away from Sasuke to say something, anything to make her stay, to make her understand, to tell her he was sorry— but then he realized that she was crying for real now, letting loose the sounds of raw heartbreak, and suddenly everything else in the world became much smaller and less important than those bitter tears. 

"Don't," she choked as she caught sight of the look in Naruto's eyes. "I'm going home, Naruto— it looks like you've got this handled well enough on your own." 

"No, Sakura, wait," he pleaded, feeling the hurt in his chest that was a sure sign of welling tears ready to spill. "Please stay, I can't— I  _ love  _ you, Sakura!"

Half a laugh escaped her in the form of a sob, and her eyes had never been brighter or more piercing. "I know. I'll be waiting for you at home."

Naruto's heart broke. 

Sasuke must have felt the same way— he  _ must  _ have, Naruto was so sure— because he was across the room in an instant, standing between Sakura and the doorway. 

"Sakura," he said softly, seeming almost a completely different person than he had been only moments before. "My beauty, look at me."

Stubbornly, she turned all the way around, refusing to even face him, but Sasuke pressed himself against her, his hands moving to circle her waist, refusing to be ignored. 

"Why are you crying?" Sasuke murmured, his fingers tracing invisible patterns over her torso, and Naruto's mouth went dry as Sakura closed her eyes. They were so close and so breathtakingly beautiful that it was hard to believe they were real, and yet the circumstances were so heavy, so serious, and so delicate that Naruto was almost afraid to breathe. 

"Don't touch me," Sakura shuddered, but Sasuke only pulled her impossibly closer. 

"Is it because you think I don't want you?" he asked, echoing Naruto's thoughts. "Because you think there's not room enough in my bed for three?"

Sakura only cried harder, and Sasuke kissed her neck with such tenderness that Naruto shivered as though he was experiencing it too. 

"You know that's not true, Sakura. Search yourself— you know that without you, it could never be the same."

At that, Sakura let loose another laughing-sob, this time with acrid bitterness that shook Naruto to his core. 

"Is that what you want?" she asked hoarsely, turning to face him. "For things to be the way they were?"

Sasuke was silent, and she laughed again.

"That's what I thought."

Naruto wanted so many things. He wanted to punch himself. He wanted to punch  _ Sasuke. _ He wanted to shake both of the people he loved until they came to their senses, wanted to kiss and cry and fuck and fight— he felt so much and nothing all at once. With valiant effort, he clamped down hard on the kyuubi's link to his mind, shutting out the cries of  _ mate, mate, mate _ with all his strength, because the  _ last  _ thing he needed right then was for Kurama to have his way. 

"Fuck it," he growled, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists. "Sasuke, this isn't about you, or us. This is about your brother, and what he's done for Konoha."

Everything went deadly quiet as Sasuke turned to look at Naruto with a glare that could maim a small animal. All three of them were perfectly still, hardly moving even to breathe, and Sasuke broke the silence with something akin to a growl.

"You had best start explaining what in the hell you mean by that."

Naruto swallowed and pulled Jiraiya's journal from the kangaroo pocket on his hoodie. 

"It's all in here," he said, handing the book over to Sasuke. "This is Jiraiya's journal. The bookmark is the beginning of Itachi's story."

Sasuke took the book, opening it to the page Naruto had bookmarked as he took a seat on the mattress. The more he read, the more upset he seemed to get, muttering things like  _ 'no,'  _ and  _ 'impossible' _ under his breath— Naruto tried to place a comforting hand on his shoulder in comfort, but Sasuke shrugged it off, prickly bastard. 

At the end of the entry, Sasuke snapped the book closed and shoved hard into Naruto's chest. 

"That's not true, any of it," Sasuke hissed. "I was  _ there,  _ I saw everything!"

"But Sasuke, Jiraiya— "

"I don't give a  _ fuck  _ about Jiraiya!" Sasuke fumed, his hands fisted tightly on his knees. "He must have been completely senile if he thinks even a little of this is acurate."

_ Kill him,  _ Kurama growled, laughing as Naruto's fingernails elongated into claws.  _ If you don't want to, let me do it, I'd love to taste his blood.  _

_ Shut up, asshole,  _ Naruto shot back, even though Sasuke's blatant disrespect of Jiraiya was enough to make him itch to kill as badly as the tech inside him.

Thankfully, before Naruto could spout off anything to make an ass of himself, Sakura interjected. "If he didn't have at least a  _ little  _ of an idea what went down, then how would he know that Itachi had TB? We've had some run-ins with Akatsuki, enough to know that he's ill. And what about Danzo? The man is a  _ monster _ , we all know it— is it that much of a stretch to think he would be capable of this?"

"Itachi is the monster," Sasuke growled, but his eyes gave away his confusion, his fear. "He tortured me with his Sharingan.  _ He killed my clan.  _ These are  _ facts.  _ That  _ bullshit  _ is little more than speculation."

Sakura sighed, sitting gently down beside him. "Sasuke… I hate to bring up painful memories, but I don't think he would have spared you just to test his abilities against later, no matter what he said. Think about it, Sasuke, it doesn't make sense. Besides, we  _ do  _ have an informant in Akatsuki… and the fact that Jiraiya said it was Itachi… it's perfectly logical."

Sasuke put his head in his hands, and Naruto and Sakura moved simultaneously to wrap an arm around him. The three of them fit together nicely— they always had— and Naruto breathed deeply once he caught the scent of Sasuke's cologne, noting that it was the same one he'd used since he was twelve. 

Naruto and Sakura stayed steadfastly by Sasuke's side as he drew in one shaky breath after another, fighting back tears. It took several minutes for him to calm down, but once he grew steady enough to raise his head, he did so with his Sharingan still activated and a hatred in his eyes that broke Naruto's heart all over again.

"If that's true," Sasuke said, his voice hoarse and his chest heaving with emotion, "Then I will  _ destroy _ Konoha, which gave the order to kill my clan, my  _ family _ , and made my brother their murderer."

Really, it was a wonder Sakura's punch hadn't made an even bigger dent in the wall with Sasuke's body than it did. Naruto was distantly concerned about the amount of money they would have to pay in damages, but infinitely more pressing was the way that Sakura held Sasuke's throat in a death-grip. She bared her teeth in a way that reminded Naruto a little of Kurama, and Sasuke himself seemed a little taken aback by her fury. 

"I would kill you for Konoha," she spat, cold and fierce. "Think about what you're saying. Think about the Rookie Nine, about Iruka-sensei and Kakashi— what about the children? What about the mothers and father and sisters and brothers? Would you destroy them, even though they've done you no wrong?" 

She paused for a moment, and though Naruto couldn't see her face very well, he knew that she was crying tears of rage. 

"What about us?" she asked, digging her blunt nails ever so slightly into Sasuke's neck as she gripped it tight. "Would you destroy  _ us _ over this nonsense? Where is the benefit in that over taking this shit to Tsunade and going against the elders, against the Akatsuki, against anyone who stands in our way with the full backing and support of Konoha? We could get a pardon for Itachi. He could come  _ home _ , Sasuke, and yet you would rather  _ destroy _ your home—  _ his  _ home— instead of admitting that you were fucking wrong."

Indignant, Sasuke tossed his bangs out of his eyes, which was so comical Naruto could almost have laughed if he hadn't felt so tense. "You forget the part where you have to obtain a pardon for  _ me,  _ Sakura-chan," he gurgled around the hand crushing his windpipe. "S-class criminal, remember?"

Naruto couldn't keep to himself any longer. He walked over to where Sakura had Sasuke pinned, looked deep into those dark, beautiful, crimson-stained eyes that he loved so very much, and said what he knew Sakura was probably thinking. 

"You say that like we haven't already forgiven you— like everyone isn't watching, waiting, and  _ wishing _ for the day you decide to come back home."

For only a fraction of a second— less than a blink, and then it was gone— Naruto saw hope in Sasuke's eyes, followed by fear. Immediately afterwards, Konoha's favorite traitor shut his eyes, replacing his mask of stoicism, but Naruto wasn't fooled for a second. 

"Come home, Sasuke," he said, gently prying Sakura's fingers away from Sasuke's neck. "We love you. Me and Sakura, yeah, but also everyone else. Ino, Shikamaru, Choji, Kiba, Hinata, Shino— well, maybe not Shino, he's a little weird— but the point is that we all want you to come back!"

There was silence for a moment— terrible, maddening,  _ deafening  _ silence— but then after Sasuke rubbed at his sore neck and looked back and forth between his former lovers, he spoke words that Naruto had never dared dream (and yet always believed) he would hear.

"Can I have a night to think about it?"

It was Sakura who regained her voice from the shock first. "Of  _ course _ you can, Sasuke, you can have as much time as you need," she told him, grabbing one of his hands. "We love you, and we want you to come home, but if you didn't want to be there, well… that would defeat the purpose."

Sasuke nodded, then looked wide-eyed and almost desperately between Naruto and Sakura, as if at a loss as to how to proceed. Kurama squirmed restlessly inside Naruto at the shift in mood. The bijuu's question was clear, though Kurama didn't voice it—  _ Are we fucking now? Are we fighting? What are we doing? _

Thing was, Naruto didn't really have an answer to that until Sakura murmured an apology as she kissed the bruising flesh of Sasuke's neck, and in return, he simply tilted her chin upward for a kiss. Immediately, the room flared full of hot arousal, and Kurama growled in tandem with Naruto's groan as Sakura palmed Sasuke through his pants. 

_ Fucking it is,  _ purred Kurama, and Naruto had to fight to keep from telling him to shut the fuck up out loud.

Somehow, the three of them ended up in a pile on the mattress, touching and kissing and  _ loving _ , and they were so tangled that Naruto couldn't tell who was who anymore— he only knew that he was  _ so hard _ and that the hand down his pants (probably Sasuke's, judging by size alone) felt incredible. However amazing it was, though, after a while it wasn't enough. Naruto ached for the intimacy the three of them used to share, and if Sakura and Sasuke's labored breathing was any indication, they were as well. 

"How do you want this?" Naruto asked, his voice rough with arousal as he marked Sasuke's neck with love-bites. "Do you… I mean, I know it's been three years, I just— "

He was cut off by Sasuke's grunt of surprise as Sakura slid downwards to the level of both their cocks, moving Sasuke's hand from Naruto and replacing it with her mouth as she wrapped a spit-slicked hand around Sasuke. 

"I want to be—  _ between  _ you," Sasuke replied, gasping as Sakura's mouth moved to him, sucking mercilessly at the head of his cock. "It's been too long and I want… all of it."

Naruto smiled, his fangs uncomfortably large but sensitive as Sasuke leaned forward to  _ lick  _ them. The emotional stuff, the pleading, the begging, the persuading— all that was hard and weird and uncomfortable. But this? The love, the pleasure, the drive to possess and be possessed? 

That, Naruto could manage. 

  
  
  


***

  
  


Sasuke had discovered heaven. 

Sakura was wet and dripping with her arousal and with his saliva as he licked up into her. She expertly downed the length of his erection again and again, only pausing to kiss Naruto, who was three fingers deep in Sasuke's ass and loving every minute of it as he murmured praise to the both of them. 

_ "You're doing so good, Sasuke-kun, taking my fingers so well." _

_ "Fuck, Sakura-chan, you're so beautiful with his cock down your throat." _

Just those few words were almost enough to make Sasuke come then and there, but his self-control won out, along with help from a firm grip on the base of his dick by Sakura. 

"Put it in," he grunted, pushing Sakura's hips away from his mouth, his chin and mouth wet from her. "Naruto, you idiot,  _ put it in,  _ I'm ready enough!"

With a laugh fit for a mischievous prince, Naruto dragged Sasuke's feet to the floor, sliding him from beneath Sakura with ease. 

"You're so gorgeous, Sasuke," Naruto grinned, those impossibly blue eyes sparkling like the ocean on a sunny afternoon. "Turn around for me."

Sasuke had half a mind to snark back that he didn't take orders, especially not from  _ dead last,  _ but there was a promise in Naruto's eyes that spoke of pleasure in all the ways Sasuke had denied himself for so long… so he turned around to find Sakura on hands and knees at the edge of the bed, legs spread wide to show him her pussy as she grinned cheekily over he shoulder. 

_ I will not pass out,  _ Sasuke told himself firmly as the head of Naruto's cock pressed against his entrance.  _ I will  _ not  _ pass out until both Sakura and Naruto cum, and then I will do as I please.  _

However, as Naruto eased himself fully into Sasuke as he entered Sakura, Sasuke came perilously close to breaking that resolve. Then, Naruto began to move, thrusting slowly, intensely into him, and moving Sasuke inside Sakura as well, and Sasuke wondered if that was what dying felt like. Sakura was  _ so tight  _ around him, and Naruto kept speeding up, repositioning himself so that he hit Sasuke's prostate with devastating accuracy— it was so perfect it was almost painful, and he reached around to Sakura's clit just to take his mind off of the mind-blowing intensity of fucking and being fucked  _ at the same time.  _

"Fuck," Sakura swore as he moved a hand to her breast, pinching and rolling a nipple between his thumb and forefinger. "Just like that, Sasuke, yes."

Naruto's pace increased steadily until he was slamming into Sasuke so fast and hard that he saw stars, and Sakura was keening breathing him in a way that said that she was close— it didn't take very much for Naruto to notice, and Sasuke felt the idiot grin against his neck, never once slowing his pace. 

"Come for me, Sakura," he ordered, nipping at Sasuke's ear. "Show Sasuke just how tight you can be when you come all over his cock, in case he's forgotten."

Sasuke hadn't forgotten— he could  _ never  _ forget— but then she was orgasming while he was fucking her and it became oh-so-clear why this had been such a good idea, the fucking. 

She had a voice like a wildcat as he worked her clit through her orgasm, and then Naruto put a firm forearm over Sasuke's abused neck and pressed  _ just so,  _ and then Sasuke was coming, his vision whiting out as Naruto fucked him through it. 

It didn't take long before both Sasuke and Sakura were gasping with oversensitivity thanks to Naruto's damnable Jinchuriki stamina, but eventually, Naruto relented, pulling out and finishing onto Sasuke's back.

(Sasuke did, in fact, pass out then, but not before kissing Sakura gently on the cheek, and bidding Naruto come closer to do the same.)

Just before the darkness overtook him, Sasuke spared a moment of thought for the warm, bright feeling in his chest, and he wondered… he wondered if this wasn't what coming home felt like

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whew! Hope u guys liked it, sorry it took 5ever to write. Idek if it makes sense anymore but I'm trying :)))


	10. Par for the Course

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for such a short chapter, but between 'rona and school stuff it was gonna be a while before I could get anything more substantial out, but I wanted to give ya'll a little something because I love you <3

Sakura woke to the crash of their hotel window being smashed in completely from where she had cracked it by throwing Sasuke the night before. 

Immediately, she scrambled to her feet, grabbing at the kunai under her side of the mattress as her boys followed suit with their own weapons. In the back of her mind, Sakura figured that the three of them probably made quite a picture, standing naked and at the ready with deadly weapons, but considering that the weirdest looking motherfucker Sakura had ever seen was standing in the shattered pieces of their window, she wasn’t even all that embarrassed. 

“I am Pain,” said the man, speaking around the piercings in his mouth. “And you, in the middle, are the kyuubi vessel.”

Sasuke, Naruto, and Sakura exchanged glances, and Sakura knew her boys had come to the same conclusion she had. This man was Akatsuki, a bijuu hunter, and he was after Naruto's kyuubi tech. No doubt, he was also incredibly powerful, unpredictable, and likely knew more about them as opponents than they knew about him. Fear tied knots in Sakura’s throat and her mouth went dry as she calculated the odds of their success, but before she could come to a definite conclusion or an acceptable course of action, Sasuke moved in front of Naruto and herself, arms spread in a defensive position. 

"Go," the Uchiha commanded over his bare shoulder, firm and impassive. "I'll handle this."

"No way," Naruto growled in protest, and Sakura was inclined to agree, but something about the eyes of their attacker— their pure amethyst color, the swirling circular pattern in them— unnerved her enough to be more concerned with getting Naruto away from the threat than protecting her pride.

"Come on, Naruto, he wants you, not Sasuke," she told him, grabbing a shirt and yanking it over her head. "Let's get out of here— Sasuke is strong enough to give us some time."

“Exactly, he wants _me_ , so he should fight me like a man and leave you two out of it!” 

It didn’t take a genius to notice that Naruto’s eyes were Kyuubi red, that his teeth were growing into fangs, and that his nails were elongating into claws. The situation was getting worse by the second— if Sakura didn’t get him out of there soon, there was going to be hell to pay on both sides of the ensuing fight— but before she could begin aggressive negotiations with her fists, Sasuke cracked his neck loudly enough to make anyone cringe. 

“Shut up, dead-last,” Sasuke snapped as the air began to fill with the tell-tale taste of ozone. “If you’re going to be Head of the Family, you don’t need to be bothered with scum like this.”

Reluctantly, Naruto acquiesced to Sakura’s attempts to get him into a shirt, and Sasuke took a moment to toss his keys in their direction. He must have felt Sakura’s questioning look directed at the back of his head, because he elaborated a moment later. 

"It's the Benz," he said, never taking his eyes off of Pain. "Drive it like you stole it and get the hell out of here."

Sakura could feel her eyes widen in shock— she couldn't _believe_ he trusted her to drive his car after all the car-related disasters she'd caused— but her surprise soon melted into something between elation and determination. 

"You got it," she replied as Naruto struggled to put on pants. “It won’t have a scratch.”

As she and Naruto turned to leave, worry twisted savagely in Sakura’s gut. Anything could happen in this fight— Sasuke could win and bring in a member of Akatsuki for questioning… or he could lose and die and they would lose him all over again. Sakura didn’t think she could take another heartbreak like that, and she _knew_ Naruto couldn’t. There was so much that she wanted to say, just in case it came to that, but there wasn’t time for any of it— there was no time for anything at all— but she was powerless to stop herself as she paused just outside the doorway, turning to look at Sasuke and Pain as they sized each other up.

"Be careful, Sasuke," she murmured, and like a fool, stood there and waited for a reply.

At first, she wasn’t sure if she was going to get one— Sasuke was never one for sentimentality, and they really didn’t have a lot of time— but then Sasuke turned his head and grunted an affirmative "Hn,” in her direction.

It wasn’t much, but it felt whole a lot more like 'I love you,' than it probably should have for being monosyllabic, so Sakura wasn’t going to complain. Instead, she grabbed Naruto’s hand and ran like hell for the exit, hoping the shirt she grabbed would be long enough to cover her ass as she booked it down the stairs. 

_Not exactly the way I pictured this morning would go,_ she thought as she nearly tripped over the last step. _But so far, it’s par for the course. I don’t know_ why _I expected any differently._

  
  
  


***

  
  
  


Sasuke had clearly forgotten the rotten luck that followed Konoha’s Family like stink on shit, because he hadn’t exactly been expecting an ambush and had therefore been caught with his pants down… literally.

“Stand down,” Pain said, blinking slowly at Sasuke. “It’s the Jinchuriki I want, and the Jinchuriki I shall have— whether or not you die is entirely up to you, and will make no difference in the outcome of these circumstances.”

_… What an asshole._

Distantly, Sasuke wondered if this was what _he_ was like during a fight. It would be sort of tragic to find out that he was actually annoying in the middle of something so serious, but unfortunately, he had little time to dwell on it since Pain was circling him like a vulture, studying him with eyes that seemed to burn his very skin. Instead, he let the lightning in his veins surge with power, and despite his nakedness, Sasuke suddenly felt as though _he_ had the upper hand.

“I happen to like that Jinchuriki,” Sasuke replied evenly, twirling his sword swiftly in his hand. “His cock is fantastic. In good conscience, I couldn’t possibly give up such perfection, especially not to the likes of you.”

“So be it,” replied Pain, and Sasuke took that as his cue to make the first move.

It was a perfect blow, entirely without flaw. He was faster than the human eye could follow thanks to his Sharingan, and the strength of his strike was perfectly balanced somewhere between unbridled strength and agile precision. The fight should have ended then and there with one thrust of his sword— quick, clean, efficient— and would have, too, if Pain hadn’t raised his hand, which somehow sent Sasuke flying out the window that the Akatsuki had come in from. 

_This is not good,_ Sasuke thought as the ground raced ever closer.

In a last-ditch effort, he thrust out his sword towards the hotel building to slow his fall. In all honesty, he wasn’t sure what he was expecting, but the reflexive action worked so much better than he had ever hoped it would. Instead of ripping his arm off with the force of a sudden stop, breaking his sword, or missing the building entirely, it cut straight through the glass of one of the windows, and he came to a grinding halt a quarter of the way from the ground. As luck would have it, Sakura must have spotted him, and had pulled up in his Benz with the convertible top let down just below him. It was perfect— too perfect— and he had never been more in love with his two idiots than when Naruto stood up, putting his dirty feet in the pristine seat of Sasuke’s car, and held out his arms with a thousand-watt smile on his face.

“Jump, bastard,” Naruto called to him, positively radiant. “I’ll catch you!” 

It was stupid, bordering on insane. Sasuke didn't trust anyone like this— not Jugo, not Karin, certainly not Suigetsu— but implicitly, he trusted Naruto and Sakura, so he jumped, landing not so much in Naruto's arms as on top of him. It wasn't exactly a comfortable landing, but it was better than concrete, so Sasuke would take it. Before either of them got settled, Sakura was punching the gas, tearing out of the parking lot so fast that the smell of burnt rubber filled the air. 

Truth be told, Sasuke had always hated Sakura’s driving, but this was a little ridiculous. Yes, he’d told her to drive it like she’d stolen it, but he hadn’t exactly meant it literally— or at least not while he was in the car. She was flying at eighty-five down the highway, weaving in an out of traffic like mad, and Sasuke thought he was going to be sick when she zoomed around an eighteen wheeler.

"Your driving is terrible," he grunted, hanging on for dear life as the woman he loved ran a red light. 

"This is not my _'me'_ driving, this is my _'get us away from psycho tackle box'_ back there driving," she griped, swinging a hard left, which squashed Sasuke and Naruto against the window. "My me driving is _fine_."

Sakura, bless her, was a rotten liar, but since she was using her Angry Voice, Sasuke thought it more prudent to keep his trap shut before he caused an accident by distracting her.

"Sakura-chan, not that I don't love your driving," Naruto began, voice muffled as Sasuke's shoulder was pressed against his mouth. "But can you tell me where we're going so I can close my eyes until we get there?"

At first, Sasuke thought he was imagining it, but if the protesting of the engine was anything to go by, Sakura had, in fact, pressed the gas pedal all the way to the floor before she responded.

"I was headed to Kakashi's, but I guess it depends on where Sasuke wants to go," she replied through gritted teeth. "Better speak now, though— not sure how much navigating I can do at this pace.”

Sasuke sighed. He should have known it would come to this. Reuniting and reconciling with Naruto and Sakura was one thing, but Kakashi-sensei was quite another. Unbidden, the image of Kakashi scolding him roundly burned through his mind, followed by the memory of the sensei’s gentle warning the day before Sasuke left Konoha. Back then, Sasuke hadn’t understood the pain in Kakashi’s eyes, or the immense, immeasurable guilt that forced his shoulders into their typical slouch, but as an older, wiser individual, Sasuke was beginning to see what he’d been on about. 

_“Well, I wouldn’t mind if you did,”_ Kakashi had told him that day, right after Sasuke had threatened to kill those most precious to him. _“Unfortunately, I no longer have anyone important to me. They’ve all been killed already.”_

Sasuke was shocked to hear it at the time, but it made sense. Kakashi truly had no one, just like Sasuke, with the exception of Naruto and Sakura… but now, there was an odd sensation tingling along Sasuke’s body, some small sliver of hope singing through his veins that what Jiraiya wrote about Uchiha Itachi was true. Sasuke might still have someone, even if he’d hated that someone for most of his life. Kakashi would never get back what he had lost, but Sasuke could, and he wondered if Kakashi would resent it.

Naruto’s voice cut through his train of thought like a hot knife through butter.

"It broke Kakashi's heart when you left," he said, his voice deep and husky with emotion in Sasuke’s ear. “He blames himself for you leaving. You don’t have to come back, but he still loves you, and the estate is still your home as much as it is ours.” 

“Fuck it,” Sasuke grumbled, knowing he was going to regret it. “Take me home, Sakura.”

She took her eyes off the road to glance at him, and Sasuke distantly wondered whether or not they would crash and die before they even decided on a destination. “To your apartment?”

“To the estate,” he replied, and before he could even give an explanation, Naruto was laughing and kissing any skin he could reach like an elated puppy.

  
_Great,_ Sasuke thought sullenly to himself. _Now I’ve given the idiot ideas._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay safe, dont touch your face, and as tempting as it may be, do NOT smack the panic-buyers (at least not in public). jail isn't fun and there would be less time for you to read fanfiction there :)


	11. Homecoming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sooo, there's probably only going to be a few more chapters left! this one, obv, then one or two after, and it'll be wrapped up nicely! I can't believe I'm ending it this soon, BUT I have to finish some things I have going on for fandom events and so-on that I simply MUST get done, so I may make a sequel to this once it's finished... or maybe not! Whatever the case, I hope you enjoy this sweet little homecoming chapter featuring cute KakaIru at the very beginning because I can't even resist.

Iruka was so blindingly, sickeningly in love with Hatake Kakashi that it took his breath away. 

Given that Kakashi was on the phone with a telemarketer, though, it was probably a weird time to be thinking about it. Iruka was completely aware that they were a rather unconventional couple at times, but getting heart-eyes over Kakashi as he pretended to be interested in burial insurance was pushing it, even for him. 

"Oh, yes, I've got my card right here!" Kakashi exclaimed with malicious glee. "Give me just one moment, I'll give you the number right away."

With that, Kakashi set down his phone, fetched a thin metal pot lid and a spatula, and proceeded to place the phone under the lid and bang on it as loudly as possible. The racket was terrible— Iruka saw it coming and it still made him jump— but Kakashi was as happy as a kid in a ball pit.

Once the whole ordeal was over (and the pot lid and spatula were put away), Iruka climbed into Kakashi's lap and kissed him softly right at the dining room table. Kakashi's hands were electric as they roamed Iruka's sides, and their kisses turned filthy within seconds. 

"You really shouldn't be rude to those telemarketers, Kakashi," Iruka breathed teasingly against his lover's mouth. "They have a job just like everyone else, you know."

Kakashi pulled slightly away, scowling. "They prey on gullible, innocent people as often as not. That burial insurance was a money-grab and you know it." 

Iruka shook his head and was about to reply when Kakashi suddenly went completely and utterly still. His muscles were relaxed, and he was still holding Iruka to him, but Iruka couldn't even hear Kakashi's breathing or feel anything that indicated that he was a living creature and not a stone statue. Ordinarily, Iruka would have asked him what was wrong, what memory had triggered his battle reflexes, but when Kakashi pushed him gently away, Iruka knew that no memory was causing this reaction. 

No, Kakashi could feel something,  _ someone  _ coming, and Iruka walked over to where he kept his own weapons of the trade. Kakashi may have been the genius warrior, the seasoned soldier out of the two of them, but Iruka didn't die easily, and could be quite a pain in the ass to someone who was stupid enough to underestimate him. 

Kakashi shook his head as he saw Iruka grabbing his explosives. "It's Sasuke with Naruto and Sakura. Iruka, this is my responsibility—"

"I won't leave you," Iruka replied, his words swift and sharp. He was using his Teacher Voice, the one he reserved for snot-nosed brats, and Kakashi wilted under the pressure of the argument before it had even begun. 

"Fine," he sulked, shoulders slumped, his silver hair somehow seeming to flatten along with his resolve. "But if things look like they're going to get hairy, I need you to go find Tsunade as fast as you can and report. Will you do that for me, my Ruka-kun?"

Iruka swallowed. Kakashi had a point. If Sasuke was coming for…  _ unsavory  _ reasons, then the Head of the Family  _ must  _ be notified. Still, he didn't like the idea of abandoning Kakashi, not to something that affected him so deeply. "If I must," Iruka replied, kissing the bottom of the scar on Kakashi's eye. "I love you."

Before Kakashi got a chance to reply, an engine roared outside as a car was slammed into park and doors shut frantically. Iruka braced himself for a jarring entrance, but instead, there was only a knock. 

Tentatively, Kakashi and Iruka shared a glance, and Kakashi shrugged and walked over to the door, opening it to reveal Team Kakashi in all its blazing glory. 

Sakura was standing at the door, obviously having been the one to knock. She had no pants on, but thankfully wore a shirt that was just long enough to cover the important bits. Naruto wasn't much better, in a mismatched and ill-fitting shirt and pants, and he looked a little green. Last but not least, Sasuke himself was completely naked save for a pair of dark boxers, leaning over the side of the porch as he puked in the grass— probably from motion sickness, if Sakura had been driving.

"Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei," Sakura greeted them, tears shining in her eyes and a big smile on her face. "We made it home."

Gently, Iruka pressed a supporting hand against Kakashi's back to find that he was trembling, despite the fact that nothing beyond a slightly quirked brow showed on his face to indicate his shock and disbelief. With uncanny grace and stoicism, Kakashi swung the door open wide enough to let them in, as cool as a cucumber— beneath it all, though, Iruka knew that the ex-soldier was overcome with emotion… and how could he not be?

They were home— all three of them— back where they belonged.

It was enough to make any father weep, and Kakashi was a truly strong man to do anything but cry for joy. 

As for Iuka, his heart began to beat frantically in his chest, and he couldn't help but hazard a small smile. It didn't make any sense, it was completely unexpected, and he'd previously thought it all but impossible…but the kids were back, all grown up and truly strong. 

Maybe, just maybe, things were going to be alright. 

  
  


***

  
  


Sasuke felt time drag sluggishly by as everything was explained to Kakashi and Iruka-sensei (whom Sasuke gathered were in some sort of relationship? He wasn't actually sure.) He felt numb and sick, and he anxiously waited for someone to smack anti-tech cuffs on his hands and drag him out back for a caning, but it never happened. Instead, Kakashi only looked at him with pain in his mismatched eyes, as though he were searching for something, and the only reason Sasuke didn't leave to go throw up again was because Naruto's hand felt so warm and comforting on his own that he was nearly afraid to let go. 

Through a haze of emotions, Sasuke watched more than heard Kakashi say his name.

"Sasuke." Kakashi's face, even without his mask, was unreadable. "Are you alright?"

Those were the first words Kakashi had directly spoken to Sasuke since his return, and they were, admittedly, a little puzzling.  _ Was _ Sasuke alright? Well… maybe? He wasn't really sure, but he had never exactly been a paragon of mental health anyways. Given that, he wasn't…  _ not  _ fine. He felt kind of okay, actually, it was just a lot to take in. 

"I'm fine," he replied curtly, and before he knew it, he was being crushed by a hug. 

"Welcome home, son," Kakashi told him, and Sasuke shivered at the words. 

It had been a long time since anyone had called him son.

After that, things got a little clearer. When Sasuke pulled away from the embrace, Kakashi's face went back to being neutral, and Sasuke felt more grounded, more sure of himself and his tentative decision. Everything seemed to come into sharper focus— Sasuke began to notice the little things again, like how Naruto was grinning and Sakura was leaning into his arm, and how Iruka-sensei was the picture of a perfect lover as he grabbed Kakashi's hand in reassurance. 

"So, since there's that, what do we do now?" Iruka asked, tugging Kakashi along to sit on the same couch that Sasuke and Naruto had tried blowjobs for the first time on. "We can't very well go on letting Itachi live as an outcast and a criminal, even if it does give us information. Without Jiraiya, there’s no one from Konoha that he could reach out to anyways. Where does that leave us?"

"I'll talk to Tsunade," Kakashi replied, looking between his adopted children. "She will obviously understand the circumstances, but there would be some complications with marching into her office with Sasuke in tow without warning. It's best handled delicately."

Sasuke fought the urge to roll his eyes. Yes, of course, the reformed traitor wouldn't be accepted back into the fold so easily. He almost let loose a scathing retort, but a gentle nudge from Naruto and a not-so-gentle stomp on his foot from Sakura were enough to dissuade him for the time being. 

"So," Sakura interjected, her pretty pink mouth twisted into a sly smile. "In the meantime, we just lay low and see what happens, right?"

Kakashi blinked. Sasuke understood the feeling completely. "Yes, I suppose."

"So that means I can take him back to my apartment?"

Naruto, the bastard, grinned like the fool he was. "Yeah, Kaka-sensei, can we?"

When Kakashi sighed and his shoulders slumped ever so slightly, Sasuke realized that he'd mirrored the reaction without even thinking about it. Come to think of it, a lot of their body language was similar… and their attitudes… 

Well, it could all be coincidence, Sasuke was sure— just remnants of being raised by the man. 

"Sure," Kakashi replied, pushing silver strands out of his face. "Why not? You kids have earned a break, and I'm sure you have much to talk about."

Naruto and Sakura shared a glance that Sasuke knew spelled trouble for him, but before he could think his way out of whatever plan they were hatching, a timer went off in the direction of the kitchen.

"You should stay for lunch, though," Iruka smiled, sweet as honey. "Your dad, under strict supervision, has actually made lasagna."

"Of course!" Naruto chirped, throwing an arm around Sasuke. "That is, if you're feeling up to it?"

All eyes around the room were fixed on Sasuke, and it took real effort not to squirm under the weight of their gazes. He cast his eyes to the floor, clenched his fists, and nodded his assent with a small "Hn."

The eyes moved from him, and suddenly he let out a breath that he didn't know he'd been holding. 

_ This is going to be harder than I thought,  _ Sasuke thought to himself as Sakura slid closer, resting her head on his shoulder, filling his nose with cherry blossom scent. 

"Well, then, Naruto, come help me set the table and I'll feed you poor children."

And yet, despite how difficult it seemed at first to acclimate to this new-yet-old environment, when they were all seated around the table and Iruka-sensei was telling them stories about his class, it didn't seem so hard at all. Everyone was laughing at the antics of Iruka's elementary school students and cracking jokes at Kakashi's expense, but above everything else, Sasuke noticed the way Kakashi looked at Iruka, and realized that it was the exact same way that Sasuke looked at Naruto and Sakura.

Then, without warning, Kakashi kissed Iruka's temple, whispered something in his ear, and was consequently smacked for whatever he'd said to turn the sensei a brilliant shade of red. Naruto and Sakura laughed, and Sasuke found himself smiling.

"Don't grow up to be like your dad, Sasuke-kun," Iruka advised, the warmth and kindness in his gaze sinking into Sasuke's soul. "He's a rogue and a knave."

"Oooh, knave, I like that one," Kakashi purred, putting on the face of a man about to swoon. "You know I love it when you break out your SAT words."

Iruka chuckled as Naruto wailed his protests. "Honey, not in front of the children, and not at the table," Iruka chided, giving Sasuke a wink. "We'll go over the dictionary later tonight."

"Torture," Kakashi sighed, all theatrics. "See what he does to me?"

Naruto gagged, Sakura laughed, and Sasuke came to a very important conclusion. 

He may have lost his biological family long ago, but he still had people that cared for him, people that loved him unconditionally. Even though he'd tried to cut his ties with them, tried to replace them, they were  _ still there _ despite everything that happened. As rag-tag as they were, they were family— they'd been that from the start. 

How? How could any of this be real?

_ Breathe,  _ Sasuke told himself.  _ It doesn't have to make sense right now, but you do have to breathe in order to make sense of it later. _

  
  


***

  
  


"So I think we need to talk." 

Both of the boys were looking at Sakura like she'd grown a second head, but neither of them protested as she motioned for them to sit down at her kitchen table. 

It was very nearly nightfall at that time, since Iruka-sensei had fed them to the point of becoming food-comatose and past it, but there was still time left in the evening for important conversations. Much had been left unsaid between the three of them, what with their traumatic morning and all, but there was no reason why they shouldn’t settle everything as soon as possible so that they could then readjust to their ‘new normal’, as it were.

"What is there to talk about, Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked, breaking the silence since Sakura refused to do so. "Is it, like, real talk?"

'Real talk' was the term they'd coined years ago when they'd first started dating to describe a conversation about their relationship that was particularly harrowing. Unfortunately, Sakura  _ did  _ intend to have real talk, and judging by her boys' expressions, they could tell. 

"Yes," she sighed, and Sasuke's eyes remained fixed on the table, and Naruto slumped farther down in his chair. 

"Whadda we gotta do that for?" he whined, giving her his best baby fox eyes. “Do we  _ really  _ have to?”

It was all Sakura could do not to facepalm. "In case you haven't noticed, we've done everything  _ but  _ talk, and when we  _ did  _ talk, it certainly wasn't about our relationship. We need to clarify things, lay down ground rules, reestablish where we all fit in this mess."

"Whatever. Just get it over with." Sasuke was resolute in not making eye contact, but having him speak at all was vast improvement, so Sakura would take it.

"Yeah, let's get it over with," Naruto huffed, pouting. 

When would either of them learn? 

"Could you two stop acting like I'm trying to rip your teeth out?" she sighed, rolling her eyes. "I'm just trying to help us out in the long run."

Sasuke huffed, folding his arms. "On the contrary, I would  _ rather  _ you rip my teeth out. A lifetime full of eating soup and gruel would be a cake walk compared to this."

The nasty head of Sakura's temper rose, and she clenched her fists. "That can be arranged," she retorted, but before they could all come to blows, Naruto put out his hands in a gesture for peace. 

“Look, I think I know what you’re getting at, Sakura,” he told her with sad understanding in his eyes. “And Sasuke, I understand why this is hard for you. It’s not all peachy for me either, believe it, but… I’ve got to know.  _ We’ve  _ got to know.”

At that, Sasuke looked a little perplexed— who could blame him? It wasn’t often that Naruto took the initiative— but despite the fact that he was  _ finally  _ emoting, Sakura couldn’t help but be a little troubled by it. The mere fact that his confusion was visible, Sakura knew, meant he was very,  _ very  _ vulnerable, and they must proceed with caution.

“Know what?” he asked, eyeing Naruto warily.

“Well, for starters… you know that we love you,” Naruto said, placing one of his tan, calloused hands over Sasuke’s slender, pale ones. “We always have and we always will— we’ve proved that. But Sasuke… you left us. No matter the reason, it still hurt, and I think I speak for Sakura-chan too when I say that we’re scared, and we don’t know where we stand with you anymore, so we gotta talk about it. Have I got it right, Sakura?”

His eyes were wide and earnest, and a warm fondness spread in Sakura’s chest as she replied. “Yes, Naruto-kun, you did very well,” she smiled sadly, cupping his cheek before turning to Sasuke. “We love you, Sasuke, we just want to make sure that you still love us— that you still  _ want  _ us. Not too long ago, you almost killed me out of anger. You put your arm through Naruto’s chest. Those aren’t exactly small events that we can just write off as a lapse in judgement.”

Sasuke, to his credit, looked appropriately guilt-ridden. “I… I don’t… I’m sorry,” he frowned, shaking his head as though trying to clear his thoughts. “There’s not an easy way to say this, and it probably won’t help much anyways but… if it’s any consolation, I do love you, both of you— it was for that very reason that I had to cut you out of my life. Loving you— loving  _ anyone _ — it’s a vulnerability. A weakness.” Sasuke paused, shuddering. “So I left. I cut every tie we had because I refused to let my feelings get in the way of my ambition. Nothing was more important to me than avenging my clan.”

The more Sasuke spoke, the bigger the knots in Sakura’s stomach became. She and Naruto were a  _ vulnerability _ to him, a  _ weakness _ — how were they supposed to take that? Tears stung at her eyes, but she stubbornly refused to swipe at them as Sasuke continued, his voice heavy with emotion and his gaze burning through her kitchen table. 

“But even though I tried to forget about my feelings, forget about you… I couldn’t.” Sasuke seemed intensely, painfully sincere, and Naruto was holding onto his hand like a lifeline even as he gripped Sakura’s with the same strength. “All those times I tried to hurt you, that was out of my desire to cut ties, yes, but also out of anger at myself for being unable to do so. I tried to stop loving you— Amaterasu, I tried— but it won’t do. There is nothing that could tear my heart away from either of you, even for a moment.” 

The silence in the air after that statement was deafening, almost smothering, and Sakura didn’t even realize that she’d started crying freely until Sasuke was thumbing a tear off of her cheek. 

“Please don’t cry, Sakura-chan,” he told her, his skin frightfully cold against the heat of her cheek. “Not because of me. It breaks what’s left of my heart.” 

“Stay with us,” she found herself saying, struggling to force words past her tears. “Please stay, Sasuke.”

"We love you," Naruto added, his voice and presence a balm to Sakura's hurt. "But it's your decision in the end. The assumption is that because you're here, you're choosing Konoha, but just because you're choosing Konoha doesn't mean you have to choose us too."

"What— of  _ course _ I choose you!" Sasuke sputtered, blinking rapidly as though he'd just been struck. "You— both of you— I—"

For a few more seconds, he struggled with his words, eyes darting from Naruto to Sakura then back again, and the jumbled cacophony in his head seemed to be winning, despite his usually collected demeanor. Then his expression turned dark with frustration, and in a fit of passion, he grabbed both Sakura and Naruto by the front of their shirts and pulled them across the table into a truly filthy three-way kiss. Lips and tongues and teeth pulled and pushed— and scraped and licked— until Sakura could no longer tell what belonged to whom. It was filthy, heady, and perfect, but all too soon she found herself pulling away, albeit for an excellent reason. 

"Boys," she told them breathlessly, her eyes half-lidded. "This is cause for a celebration."

Naruto scratched his head. "Celebration? But Kakashi said—"

"I don't  _ care  _ what Kakashi said," Sakura cut him off, looking straight into Sasuke's eyes with a deadly smirk on her face. "Remember back then, senior year of high school, when we all talked about trying out the exhibitionist place on 14th Street? The goth one, with all the BDSM gear?"

"Yeah, but what's that got to do with—" 

Realization dawned in Naruto's eyes and he grinned, eyes flashing kyuubi red for only a fraction of a second before returning to their usual sapphire.

Sasuke, having always been rather quick on the draw, looked almost a little frightened at Sakura's proposition. "Sakura, are you sure this is a good idea? Naruto doesn't even know if he likes that kind of thing yet, and besides, can we even get in?"

Sakura laughed at that, truly laughed. It seemed that Sasuke hadn't been keeping his tabs very well since the big split. With a feline smile, she placed a hand on his arm, relishing her possession of the upper hand (for once). "Perhaps it escaped your notice, since you were so far away and all for so long, but darling, we  _ own  _ this city."

"And hell, I guess if sex with you guys is involved, it really can't even be bad at all, no matter how many people are watching!" Naruto laughed, clapping a hand onto Sasuke's shoulder. 

At that, Sasuke's mouth turned up at the corners, and Sakura knew she’d won.

“Well then, boys,” she purred, standing and readjusting her shorts. “We’d better go get changed. It wouldn’t do for us to stand out in the crowd. I’m thinking… leather.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya'll heard me, she said LEATHER also if you dont like LIGHT BDSM then maybe the next chapter isnt for you?


	12. On Display

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Leather, as promised!

Naruto nearly swallowed his tongue when Sakura walked out of the bathroom. She wore a black leather bandeau and black denim shorts that were so tight they should have been illegal, paired with red fishnets and black kitten heels. Most catching of all, however, was the solid red bandana tied loosely around her neck in a neat little bow, reminiscent of a Christmas present all ready to be unwrapped. Just before Naruto could make a comment to that effect, the door to Sakura’s bedroom squeaked open to reveal the real show-stopper out of the three of them— Sasuke, who had insisted on being the sub for the evening. 

The young Uchiha looked like he’d walked off of the front page of Vogue on most days without even trying, but when he put his mind to it, Sasuke could be truly stunning. Like Naruto, he was clad in leather pants and a mesh shirt, but that was where the resemblance of their attire stopped— the nipples of the shirt had been cut out, revealing Sasuke’s pretty pink nipples and part of his lean, pale chest, and a studded leather collar that read “SLUT” in rhinestones adorned his neck, standing out in stark relief next to the lines of his white collarbones. Charmingly, his unruly hair was as untamed as ever, but his eyes were lined with the barest hint of black liner, giving them a predatory look even though it should have made him look softer.

And so, naturally, Naruto felt as though he’d been punched as he took in the sight of the man he was lucky enough to be fucking tonight, appropriately humbled by Sasuke’s beauty and grace. Sasuke, however, seemed to have no such humility as he studied Naruto hungrily and with an upward tilt to his lips that said he  _ knew  _ how gorgeous he was.

“Take a picture, idiot, it’ll last longer.”

Unbothered, Naruto let a lazy smile dominate his features before he replied. “I don’t have to,  _ slut _ , and last I checked, you wanted to be the one taking orders tonight, not me, so shut the hell up and kiss me, you gorgeous bastard.”

_ That  _ little makeout session cost them each a rather stinging slap on the ass and a round scolding from Sakura before they were shooed into her car and told to behave… or else. Unfortunately, both Sasuke and Naruto rather liked being scolded, so it was a struggle for both of them to keep the white-hot blood thrumming through their veins in check until they reached the club. However, Sakura’s smooth commands from the driver’s seat and the wicked leather switch she had placed in the cupholder were pretty good incentives to behave, and more then once, Naruto caught Sasuke eyeing the riding crop with hungry eyes that sent heat searing all the way from Naruto’s chest to his belly. 

Truth be told, Naruto would usually be feeling a little stage fright— intimacy, especially in this form, wasn’t something he’d ever felt comfortable sharing with others outside of Sasuke and Sakura— but unlike the discomfort he’d experienced in the lobby of the Icha Icha Fantasy Hotel, all he felt now was excitement arousal. Perhaps it was just the happiness-high of finally,  _ finally _ being with both of the people he loved… or maybe it was because their relationship would be on display for all to see, showing everyone to whom he belonged and who belonged to him. Whatever the reason, all he could think about was how much fun this was about to be, and how ready he was to whip it out in front of a crowd.

_ What can possibly be better than this? _ he wondered to himself, grinning like a fool.  _ I’ve got the two prettiest people in Konoha for lovers, and everyone is about to see how fucking huge my dick is, this is great! _

_ … isn’t it? _

  
  


***

  
  


Sasuke had been impossibly impatient for things to move forward into more sexy territory since his little party of three had crossed the threshold of the building, but Sakura had murmured something about the holding of horses, so Sasuke at least attempted to look like he wasn’t itching to fidget like Naruto was. Fifteen minutes in, and he was no better— it certainly didn’t help that everyone looked at the three of them sideways, obviously aware of who and what they were, and everywhere Sakura moved them to, people parted in deference.

(A good five minutes later, Sasuke realized just what Sakura had been doing. Along with socializing and acclimating Sasuke and Naruto to the environment, she had also been gauging the reaction of the crowd to Sasuke’s presence, which was admittedly a pretty intelligent thing to do since he was still technically a traitor to Konoha City.)

A full twenty minutes passed before Sakura motioned for Sasuke and Naruto to head towards a platform, and by that time, both Naruto  _ and  _ Sasuke had been wound up so tightly that they very nearly tripped over their own feet to get there. 

However, it wasn’t until Sasuke’s wrists were slipped into painfully tight leather cuffs and he was chained in such a way that forced his arms to point directly downwards that he felt the burning impatience in his blood recede. In its stead, heady lust rose to the surface, followed by the sensation of raw vulnerability ripping through his chest as Sakura sat down and crossed her legs directly in front of him, their sides facing the audience that had accumulated during their hasty ascension of the platform. 

“Naruto,” Sakura commanded, and the blonde came to her side as easily as though he were floating. Her green eyes shone with mischief as she turned to regard Sasuke, then looked back to Naruto with an electrifying grin as she caressed his whiskered cheek with her switch. 

“I want you to kiss him, Naruto. Make it rough, if you’d like, but be sure that you tightened those chains well enough. I don’t want him to be able to touch you at all. Dirty sluts don’t get to put their hands all over my property, not even if I own them too.”

Sasuke swallowed thickly as his cock jumped, and Naruto’s mouth was on his in an instant.

God, but that man could kiss. Their tongues danced to a silent rhythm, and Naruto ground their hips together, eliciting an almost embarrassing sound from Sasuke as their clothed cocks rubbed together. Sasuke ached to reach out and touch Naruto, he wanted to force their hips together, to caress Naruto’s face, to wrap a hand around the Jinchuriki’s throat and  _ squeeze _ , but Sasuke’s hands were pulled firmly down and outward, subjecting him to whatever Naruto— and, ultimately, Sakura— wished to allow. Cruelly, Naruto’s fingernails scraped his scalp as his hair was pulled, exposing Sasuke’s throat to Naruto’s lips, tongue, and teeth, and from the new angle, Sasuke could see that Sakura’s bandeau was nowhere in sight, allowing her perky breats to breathe freely as she teased her own nipples with the switch that Sasuke would no doubt feel on his ass and thighs later. It was intensely erotic, and a fire burned low in his belly as Sakura rose from her seat, unfolding like a blooming cherry blossom, the kind she was so aptly named for. 

“Naruto, darling,” she purred as she unbuttoned her pants. “Slap our little slut for me.”

Sasuke whined as Naruto released his hair, but the steady pain of the pulling was soon deliciously replaced with a swift (but not very solid) blow to the face— it was just enough to sting, the way Sasuke liked it best.

“Now, Naruto, I want you to suck his cock,” Sakura commanded, now fully nude except for her fishnets and her bandana. “And rid yourself of those pants— I want everyone to see the gorgeous cocks that will be filling me up later tonight behind closed doors.” 

Naruto made quick work of his pants, shimmying out of the leather less before falling to his knees in front of Sasuke and rubbing his face against the front of Sasuke’s pants, teasing mercilessly. After what felt like an eternity, Naruto  _ finally  _ pulled Sasuke’s pants down to his knees and freed his cock with a hearty suck to the head that had Sasuke’s eyes rolling back into his head. 

“ _ Fuck _ ,” Sasuke hissed as Sakura, legs propped open and leaned back in her chair, began to play with herself, wetting her fingers with her arousal.

“Oh, and Sasuke? If you thrust into his mouth— if you so much as twitch a finger— that’ll be another stripe I’ll leave on your skin later. Am I understood?”

Sasuke’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head as he watched her tease the switch along her folds, but he choked out an answer in the affirmative without swallowing his own tongue. 

“Excellent,” she smiled, and Sasuke’s heart pounded. Sakura was so beautiful, absolutely breathtaking— she was also a magnificent dom, always pushing, always firm, but never too much. He could have cum just from watching her, but his attention was jerked firmly downwards as Naruto nipped harshly at his thigh with a cheeky grin, and Sasuke fell in love all over again with that dopey smile.

Less than a minute later, Sasuke found himself getting close to orgasm, and he ached to push Naruto away, to scream that he was so close but he wasn’t ready, Sakura hadn’t said he could yet— but then Sakura’s hand touched Naruto’s shoulder, and thankfully, he stopped his ministrations to be pulled to his feet as Sakura kissed him. Sasuke couldn’t tear his eyes away from them, the act of watching Naruto’s tongue disappear into her mouth sweetened all the more for knowing that Naruto’s mouth tasted like Sasuke’s own cock. Then, after a moment, Sakura moved in front of Sasuke to play with his sensitive nipples as she tip-toed to kiss him too. 

“Such a good little slut for me,” she giggled, wrapping a hand around his cock just to  _ squeeze _ . “I think I’ll give you what you want.”

“Please,” he grunted, leaning farther down to kiss her again, but she grabbed his throat and pushed backwards, keeping him away from her. Tears welled unbidden in his eyes, but not from pain, nor from pleasure— the only way he could think of to describe the experience was a deep, intense catharsis, an immense feeling of  _ relief  _ that he was no longer in control, that he didn’t have to  _ think _ , only feel. Tenderly, Sakura brushed at a tear, then was gone, moving to adjust the chains attached to the cuffs on his wrist so that he was bent over at the hips, legs spread humiliatingly wide to maintain his comfort and balance.

“Good,” she praised, patting Sasuke’s cheek. “What a sweet little slut. Obedient. Now, darling, you’re going to get to suck cock. Do you like that?”

“Yes,” Sasuke breathed, looking up at her though he was eye-level with her belly-button. “Yes please, I want to.”

“Naruto, come— you get to be sucked off by our pretty boy here. What do you say? Do you think he deserves to choke on your dick like a little bitch? Or is that too good for his kind?”

“I think I just want to get my dick wet,” Naruto chuckled, and suddenly a large, perfect cock was jutting proudly towards Sasuke’s mouth. “And I don’t care one way or another how that happens.”

That, of course, was a lie— but since Sasuke was gratefully bobbing up and down with his lips around Naruto’s cock, he wasn’t going to be particularly picky. 

“Fuck, that’s good,” Naruto groaned, fisting a hand in Sasuke’s hair, and Sasuke jerked as he felt somethig— the riding crop, of course— ghost over his backside and tease at his crack. 

“I’m going to strike you now,” Sakura told him as she familiarized his backside with the sensation of the crop. “On three.”

She counted, and then let her switch fly. 

Strikes one through ten were light, teasing, and not at all what Sasuke wanted, though he couldn’t say so with a throat full of cock. By the fifteenth stroke, though, his chest was heaving with arousal and exertion combined; by the twentieth, his cock was leaking precum as heavily as his eyes were leaking tears, and he was so, so close to the edge even though he had been untouched. When he finally  _ did _ orgasm, he’d lost count of the strikes, and Sakura was stroking him hard and fast as Naruto came in his mouth. He would have screamed, but he would likely have choked on cum if he did, so he swallowed and gulped air as the cuffs on his hand were removed and he was walked over to Sakura’s chair to sit down— which hurt, but hurt significantly less so than standing or bending in that awkward position with his arms cramping from the strain. 

“You did so good, baby,” Sakura murmured as she pulled her clothes on and summoned a bottle of water from somewhere off the platform. “Both of you did so good.” 

“Yeah, Sasuke, you hear that? We did good!”

Sasuke nodded, weak and tired and totally blissed out, and a smile spread across his face unmatched by any smile he’d had in the past three years.

He was home, he was in love, and he’d just had the life fucked out of him by the two most incredible people in the world. In front of people. Fucking hell, that was great.

  
  
  


***

  
  


Late that night, after a couple drinks and intense aftercare for the boys, Sakura was tired. They’d both taken turns with her, slow and sensual while the other rested, and she’d orgasmed four times in two hours. She was exhausted, the  _ best  _ kind of exhausted, snuggled between her boys and comfy as could be when her phone buzzed on the other side of Naruto. She was tempted not to answer, but it buzzed again, and she groaned, reached over Naruto, and answered the phone.

“Tsunade-sama? Is this an emergency?”

_ “You know, that’s what Inoichi asked me when I phoned him too,”  _ the Family head mused somewhat drunkenly.  _ “You gave a damn good show, kid, but I gotta have that shit burned out of my brain.” _

Sakura sat bolt upright in bed as she gasped, scandalized. “Shishou! You didn’t! You— I—”

_ “I did, kid. Look, doesn’t matter, but I need to speak to the asshole tomorrow. Got Kakashi’s call too late… anyways, my office at nine. Keep him from killing anyone or running off again or I’ll tell Inoichi to tell everyone what he’s going to have erased via image transfer.” _

“No, yeah, of course,” Sakura stuttered, and then hung up and all but threw the phone away from her in embarrassment. 

“Wazzat,” Sasuke murmured, half asleep, and Naruto grunted something similar.

“Nothing, nothing, just go back to sleep,” she stammered nervously behind a laugh. 

_ I’m going to die of embarrassment,  _ she thought to herself as Sasuke pulled her closer and Naruto snuggled tighter.  _ But I wouldn’t have that memory erased even if it  _ did  _ kill me. _

__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm tired, I'm a little hungry, and I cried for two hours because of finals season, but I GOT YALL A CHAPTER!!!!! I DID IT!!!! I did it because I love you all, each and every one of you!!!! ❤❤


	13. Power Move

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hehehe, two chapters in as many days? from me? more likely than you thing

Sasuke woke feeling stiff and sore, but deliriously happy. He had somehow ended up in the middle of his lovers (likely because Sakura got up to pee in the middle of the night), and he was cocooned in warmth and, he imagined, love. Gently, he disentagled himself from them and hopped into Sakura’s shower, but not before plugging up his phone to charge and grabbing the ointment Sakura had mixed up for his aching backside. 

The water of the shower was next to boiling— steam rose from Sasuke’s skin even after he left the spray of water— and by the time he got out, his skin was beet-red and a little blotchy from his vigorous scrubbing. Without really thinking about it, he grabbed Sakura’s (thankfully oversized) bathrobe and padded out into the hallway that led to the kitchen, absently checking his phone, which had been blown up by his roommates and coworkers. 

From Jugo, there were three messages, all concern and gentle urging for Sasuke to check in with them; from Suigetsu, ten messages, three voicemails, and a snapchat; from Karin, no less than twenty voicemails and a minimum of ten different messages on ten different apps. In reply, Sasuke simply opened their group chat, sent an intentionally uninformative “I’m fine”, and turned his phone back off before starting breakfast. Jugo, Suigetsu, and Karin were a problem for another time, when Sasuke was more caffeinated and more inclined to think about where their loyalties lay— and besides, he found himself hard-pressed to think of anything but waking his lovers with gentle kisses and breakfast in bed. 

After all, if he was going to see the legendary Tsunade, whose temper was purported to be the terror of Konoha— Sasuke wanted some damn good sex before he went, just in case he was killed on sight.

  
  


***

  
  


As Sai watched from the shadows, Tsunade sighed deeply at the trio sitting before her.

What a load of fucking problems Sai’s new teammates had. A bijuu hunter was after Naruto, Uchiha Itachi, traitor to Konoha, wasn’t  _ actually  _ a traitor to Konoha, unlike his recently reformed little brother, Uchiha Susuke, who sat before the Head of the Family, asking to be let back into the fold, and Tsunade wasn’t able to look any of them in the eye because she just  _ happened  _ to see them fucking on a stage the night before— Sai was aware of this, because he had been on guard duty as he was today.

A sorry lot indeed.

But, no matter how big the problems seemed, once they were broken down into bite-sized pieces, the solution seemed simple. 

“Uchiha Sasuke,” Tsunade said, watching Sasuke-kun’s features intently to gauge his reaction. “You wish to come back to Konoha?”

Completely stoic, he replied, “Yes, Tsunade-sama.”

“And you renounce Orochimaru?”

“Yes.”

“You agree to give us all the intel you have?”

“Yes.”

Tsunade thought for a moment, then spoke again. “Your brother, Uchiha Itachi-san, will receive a pardon from me, and an ample reward for his years of service and sacrifice. You will receive a pardon as well, on the condition that I never have to see you in this office for…  _ unsavory _ reasons ever again. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, Tsunade-sama.” Sasuke paused, then began again. “I have one more request.”

At that, Naruto and Sakura turned to look at Sasuke with panicked expressions, and Sai fought back a laugh. 

“What, brat?” Tsunade grunted, reaching for the flask that Sai had removed earlier. “Two pardons in one day isn’t enough for you?”

“I simply wanted to recommend three excellent agents that I have worked closely with for the past few years to your service,” he replied smoothly, drawing out a piece of paper from his pants pocket. “These are their names. I will wait for your decision, but they would be great assets to the Family.”

Tsunade sighed again, and then agreed to think about it before dismissing them, but not before she’d wrestled a hug from Naruto and a kiss on the cheek from Sakura. On their way out, however, Sai couldn’t resist the urge to drop his cloaking tech and touch Sasuke’s shoulder, getting the Uchiha’s  _ undivided  _ attention.

“If you hurt them,” Sai said, smiling pleasantly, “I will kill you.”

At that, Sasuke snorted, brushing off Sai’s hand. “If I ever hurt them, I’ll kill me myself.”

_ Well then _ , Sai thought, his smile genuine as Sasuke turned and left.  _ He might be alright after all.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love you all!!! I'm so sad to see this end, but I think you all for your continued support!!!!


End file.
